Furniture Fitting with a Sphinx Trampling a Nubian

AAT Object Form/Functionfurniture ornaments

AAT Object Techniquepainting (image-making)

AAT Object Form/Functionapplied decoration

AAT Object Form/Functionfigures (representations)

Possible OriginSyria, Asia

CulturePhoenician

PeriodIron Age II

Date7th Century BCE

MediumIvory, pigment, gold leaf

Credit LineGift of 2006 Veneralia Patrons in honor of Monique and Ferdinand Seefried

Dimensions2 1/4 x 1 1/2" (5.7 x 3.8 cm)

Object number2006.021.001

Label TextThis rare and exquisite ivory carving was the work of a skilled Syrian or Phoenician craftsman and was produced in the Levant, although the motif is Egyptian. It was not only carved in precious ivory but embellished with blue, red, and black pigments as well as gold leaf. It would have decorated a piece of furniture such as King Solomon's throne as described in the Bible (I Kings 10:18-20). The Phoenicians were renowned as artisans and were employed in the decoration of Solomon's famous temple. A number of these ivories were found in excavations at Nimrud by the archaeologist Max Mallowan and conserved by his famous wife, author of numerous mystery novels, Agatha Christie. These may well have come, at least in part, from the sack of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. It is difficult however to place many of these in context as examples have been found all over the Mediterranean and near east in Crete, Mesopotamia, Turkey, and Palestine. The subject matter is derived from Egyptian art-a winged sphinx dominating a Nubian captive-but by the first millennium B.C. such motifs had developed into an international style signifying the cosmopolitan taste of Near Eastern civilizations.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, 2006-January 2011
Monsters, Demons & Winged Beasts: Composite Creatures in the Ancient World, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - June 19, 2011
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, June 20, 2011 - February 12, 2018
Michael C. Carlos Museum Morgens West Foundation Galleries of Ancient Near Eastern Art, November 10, 2018 - January 28, 2022
Published ReferencesMichael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 35.
Georgina Herrmann and Stuart Laidlaw, "Assyrian Nimrud and the Phoenicians," Archaeology International 16 (2012-2013): 92, Figure 8.
Georgina Herrmann and Stuart Laidlaw, Ivories from Rooms SW11/12 and T10 Fort Shalmaneser (London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq, 2013), 189, number 373, Plate 86.

ProvenancePurchased by MCCM from Sue McGovern-Huffman [Sands of Time Antiquities], Washington DC. Deaccessioned and returned to the Republic of Iraq, March 8, 2023.

Status

Not on view