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Rupert Wace Ancient Art Limited
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Egyptian bronze cat
( Egypt
c. 600 BC
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Medium
Bronze
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Signed/Inscribed/Dated
Late Dynastic Period. 26th Dynasty
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Dimensions
13.30cm high
( 5.24 inches high)
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Provenance
Joseph Ternbach collection, acquired 1968
Private collection USA
Private collection UK
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Literature:
Cf. G. Roeder, 'Mitteilungen aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung. Band VI. Ägyptische Bronzefiguren', Berlin 1956, Tafel 50, for other examples of bronze cats.
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Description / Expertise
Depicted seated on its haunches with its long forelegs held close together, the tail neatly curled to the right with the tip resting close to the paws. The body is well modelled and the head is held erect with large pointed ears pierced for earrings, the insides incised with parallel lines mimicking the feather of the goddess Maat. The pupils of the clearly defined eyes are incised, and the whiskers, nose and mouth are all naturalistically rendered. A broad collar necklace is incised around the neck from which hangs a Wedjat eye amulet. A Hpr-scarab is incised to the crown of the head just above the eyes.
The female cat was an animal manifestation which came to be associated uniquely with Bastet, an ancient goddess worshipped at Per-Bastet (Bubastis) in the Delta.
Originally, however, she had been only one of a number of savage, maned lion-goddesses, considered fierce enough to act as royal protector. Because of her origins, when depicted as an animal-headed woman Bastet’s head is just as often likely to be that of a maned lion as that of a cat; consequently, confusion with other lion-headed goddesses is not uncommon.
Bastet as cat is not recorded with certainty before the Libyan twenty-second to Twenty-fourth Dynasties (c. 945-715 BC) although the domesticated animal was introduced during the Middle Kingdom a thousand years earlier. It was in the Libyan Period that her popularity increased greatly, no doubt because of the rise in importance of Bubastis; by tradition the Libyan kings originated from the area. But her cult enjoyed its greatest prestige in the Late Period (post c. 600 BC) when there was a conscious revival of the worship of the most ancient Egyptian deities. This is the period to which most of the bronzes of the goddess date, donated by pious worshippers and depicting her as an aloof, majestic seated temple cat wearing earrings and other jewellery such as cowrie strings (connected with female fertility), collars and pectorals. Her link with the sun god, her father, is made clear by the scarab between her ears.
The seated cat is an image of the goddess on earth, Bastet made manifest in her chosen animal, selected to be housed in the temple to be the focus of all ritual and worship.
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