La Casa Christie's vendió por 3,7 millones de libras esterlinas (5,9 millones de dólares) una estatuilla de la diosa egipcia Isis, marcando de este modo récord mundial para un artefacto del Antiguo Egipto subastado, informó hoy The Daily Telegraph.

Fuente: Ria Novosti, 30 de octubre de 2012

El precio estimativo de la escultura fue de 640-960 mil dólares, según informó Christie's en su web, pero disparó durante la subasta realizada el 25 de octubre. La adquirió el londinense Daniel Katz para su colección personal.

La estatuilla fabricada de gres oscuro data de los años 664-525 a.C., Período Tardío del Antiguo Egipto, en que gobernaban de los faraones de la dinastía XXVI de Sais.

La figurilla, de unos 73 centímetros, representa a la diosa Isis, hermana y esposa de Osiris, sentada en el trono.

El artefacto fue adquirido en Alejandría alrededor del año 1840 por un diplomático francés, en cuya familia se guardó durante más de 170 años. Sus herederos decidieron venderlo en la subasta “Antigüedades” de Christie's.

El récord anterior fue marcado en 2005, cuando el Museo de Artes Kimbell de Texas, EEUU, adquirió por 2,7 millones de dólares una estatuilla que representa al príncipe egipcio Nefer-Ka (dinastía IV o V) y su familia. El artefacto era más chico, pero más antiguo, cerca del año 2450 a.C.

Isis, Mother and Magician

BY LAETITIA DELALOYE

This exceptional Egyptian statue of the goddess Isis, dating from circa 6th century B.C., will be offered in the 25 October Antiquities auction.

It is stylistically very close to another famous statue in the Cairo Museum (cf. M Saleh, The Official Catalogue of the Cairo Museum, Mainz, 1987, no. 250), which came from the tomb of Psamtek in Saqqara and dates to the late Dynasty XXVI. It was used as a healing statue whereby those visiting the accessible courtyard of the tomb would pour water over the magical texts to be healed and to protect themselves from venomous animals. In a more portable format, cippi stelae served the same purpose. The present statue might therefore have been placed in an open space accessible to anyone who needed to call upon the goddess’s magic, perhaps in either a temple of Isis or the open courtyard of our statue’s dedicant Ptahirdis’s funerary complex, situated near the Sphinx at Giza.

Isis is the most iconic goddess of Egypt. Her cult goes back to the early days of the Egyptian civilization and spread throughout the Mediterranean during the Roman period. She personifies the mother par excellence, protector and magician, above all caring for her family. In the Osiris myth, she looked for her brother and husband Osiris throughout Egypt after he was kidnapped by the jealous Seth and his body parts scattered along the Nile. She used the secrets of mummification on Osiris’s body for the first time to preserve his body for eternity, but needed an heir to succeed him. She transformed into a bird, flapped her wings above him to reanimate the god and became pregnant with Horus. She then hid in the marshes of Khemmis in the Nile Delta to prepare for the birth and protect her son from the attacks of Seth using her powerful spells and magic. This statue gives her a voice: “I am Isis, mistress of Khemmis, efficient of magical utterances in secret places. Geb has given to me his magical power to act as protection for Horus thereby. I know how to seal the mouth of every serpent, how to turn back every lion with [my] power on the desert, to act against crocodiles in the river, every reptile which bites in their holes. I shall repell the venom […] I shall give air to the throat with the magical power”.

This statue of Isis is remarkable for its completeness and state of preservation. With her serene and benevolent look, this statue is a stunningly beautiful example of Egyptian sculpture, with an impeccable provenance having been in the same family in France since the 1840s.