The priest, the prince, and the Pasha
Subtitle: the life and afterlife of an ancient Egyptian sculpture
By: Lawrence M. Berman
Contributors: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: MFA Publications; MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 206
ISBN-13: 9780878467969
Subjects: Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Excavations (Archaeology); Private collections; Portraits; Priests; Egyptian Portrait sculpture; History
Other titles: Life and afterlife of an ancient Egyptian sculpture
Description: "Sometime in the fourth century BC, an unknown Egyptian master carved an exquisite portrait in dark-green stone. The statue that included this remarkably lifelike head of a priest, who was probably a citizen of ancient Memphis, may have been damaged when the Persians conquered Egypt in 343 B.C. before it was ritually buried in a temple complex dedicated to the worship of the sacred Apis bull .... After almost two millennia, the head was excavated by August Mariette, a founding figure in French archaeology, under a permit from the Ottoman Pasha. Sent to France as part of a collection of antiquities assembled for the inimitable Bonaparte prince known as Plon-Plon, it found a home in his faux Pompeain palace. After disappearing again, it resurfaced in the personal collection of Edward Perry Warren, a turn-of-the twentieth-century American aesthete, who sold it to the Museum of Fine Arts."--book jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-192) and index.