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Description

The statue represents a queen as a striding young woman holding an ankh sign in her right hand and a double cornucopia (dikeras) with fruits and breads in her right hand. The coiffure consists of a long tripartite wig with carefully treated locks and three uraei; the headdress that had been originally shaped as a sun-disk between cow horns is lost. The face is elongated, with slightly protruding cheekbones and plump cheeks, the ear lobes are pierced. The queen wears an ankle-long tightly fitting dress with long sleeves; the forms of the body under the dress are shown as if it were naked. A soft treatment of the breasts and abdomen is characteristic of Ptolemaic sculpture. The back pillar is as high as the vertex.
The statue is uninsctibed and its attribution is based on purely iconographic features. The decisive argument is the shape of the cornucopia. This Hellenistic emblem is an attribute of several Ptolemaic queens (Arsinoe II, Berenike II, Arsinoe III, Cleopatra I, Cleopatra VII), but in the form of dikeras it is characteristic of Arsinoe II. The facial features of the Hermitage statue are rather similar to those of the sculptures of Arsinoe II in Vatican and Bonn as well as to her relief representation on the Gonzaga Cameo in the Hermitage. At the same time, it is stylistically different from most of the images of Arsinoe II and is closer to later Ptolemaic statuary.

The statue represents a queen as a striding young woman holding an ankh sign in her right hand and a double cornucopia (dikeras) with fruits and breads in her right hand. The coiffure consists of a long tripartite wig with carefully treated locks and three uraei; the headdress that had been originally shaped as a sun-disk between cow horns is lost. The face is elongated, with slightly protruding cheekbones and plump cheeks, the ear lobes are pierced. The queen wears an ankle-long tightly fitting dress with long sleeves; the forms of the body under the dress are shown as if it were naked. A soft treatment of the breasts and abdomen is characteristic of Ptolemaic sculpture. The back pillar is as high as the vertex.
The statue is uninsctibed and its attribution is based on purely iconographic features. The decisive argument is the shape of the cornucopia. This Hellenistic emblem is an attribute of several Ptolemaic queens (Arsinoe II, Berenike II, Arsinoe III, Cleopatra I, Cleopatra VII), but in the form of dikeras it is characteristic of Arsinoe II. The facial features of the Hermitage statue are rather similar to those of the sculptures of Arsinoe II in Vatican and Bonn as well as to her relief representation on the Gonzaga Cameo in the Hermitage. At the same time, it is stylistically different from most of the images of Arsinoe II and is closer to later Ptolemaic statuary.

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Object''s History

From the collection of Duke Maximillien de Leuchtenberg; transferred from his palace in Peterhoff in 1929.

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Bibliography

Lapis I.A., Statuya Arsinoi II. SGE, XI, 1957, p.49.
Matthieu M.E., Pavlov V.V., Pamyatniki iskusstva drevnego Egipta v museyah Sovetskogo  Soyuza. Moscow, 1958, fig.99-100.
Bothmer B.V. et al., Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period, New York, 1960, 126, 147.
Lapis I.A., Matthieu M.E., Drevneegipetskaya skul'ptura v sobranii Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha. Moscow, 1969, pp.124-125, cat.no.141, fig.88.
Landa N.B., Lapis I.A., Egyptian Antiquities in the Hermitage. Leningrad, 1974, pl.131.
Leclant J., Agypten III, Spatzeit und Hellinismus, Munchen, 1981, 299, Abb.326.Qua
Quaegebeur J., in: Das Ptolemaische Agypten, Mainz, 1978, 253, Anm.43.
Bolshakov A.O., in: Aus den Schatzkammern Eurasiens, Masterwerke antiker Kunst, Zurich, 1993, 334-336, cat. no.170
Bolshakov A.O., in: Alexandros kai Anatole, Thessaloniki, 1997, 110-112, cat.no.19.

General Comment


Preservation: 
The headdress and the inlayed eyes are lost; the surface is scratched.

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