POLYCHROME PAINTED WOOD BA BIRD

POLYCHROME PAINTED WOOD BA BIRD

Finely painted features on applied gesso, blue tripartite wig and false beard, surmounted by solar disc; wings and talons coloured red, legs with stippled feather details.

Ex priv. coll., USA, acq. between 1970 – 1989; priv. coll. N.F., Netherlands, acq. from Bonhams, London 2009
H. 8.5 cm. Mounted on black stand

Ptolemaic Period, c. 300 – 30 BC

cf. S. DÁria, P. Lacovara, C.H. Roehrig, Mummies and Magic, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1983, fig. 148a, b, pp. 199-200; M.J. Raven, De Dodencultus van het Oude Egypte, Amsterdam 1992, p. 67, no. 26.
The Egyptians believed that a person’s essence or soull was composed of several elements. The Ba was one of the elements of the spirit with personality and emotions. It stayed close to the body of the deceased and was eventually reunited with other elements, to live eternally in the Afterlife.