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San Antonio Museum of Art, Museum Purchase: Stark-Willson Collection.

Ceremonial Palette Fragment

San Antonio Museum of Art, Museum Purchase: Stark-Willson Collection.
San Antonio Museum of Art, Museum Purchase: Stark-Willson Collection.
Contact San Antonio Museum of Art, Registrar Department for rights and reproduction of this image. Photography by Peggy Tenison.

Ceremonial Palette Fragment

Culture: Egyptian
Period: Predynastic-Early Dynastic period
Date: ca. 3300-3100 B.C.
Medium: Slate
Dimensions:
height: 3 in. (7.6 cm)
width: 2 3/4 in. (7 cm)
depth: 3/4 in. (1.9 cm)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase: Stark-Willson Collection
Object number: 86.138.62
Provenance: by purchase, the Stark family, Orange, Texas, between 1927 and 1929; by bequest, the Nelda C. and H. J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, 1965; by purchase, the San Antonio Museum of Art with funding from Mr. and Mrs. Robert Willson, 1986
Published References G. D. Scott, III, "Two Ceremonial Palette Fragments in the Collection of the San Antonio Museum of Art," in The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of David B. O'Connor, Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypt Cahier 36, eds. Z. A. Hawass and J. Richards (Cairo: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l'Égypte, 2007), 2:343-350. J. Powers and J. Johnston, eds., San Antonio Museum of Art: Guide to the Collection, (San Antonio: San Antonio Museum of Art, 2012), 22.
Label Text
Elaborately decorated palettes are a rare, but important, art form from the period of Egypt's unification. Despite their early date, these palettes show features that remained typical of Egyptian art for centuries, including human figures represented in a combination of profile and frontal views and organized in horizontal registers. When complete, this palette probably depicted a ceremony. On the front, a woman sits beneath the canopy of a carrying chair, and another woman sits beside the chair. Parts of a second carrying chair and of three male figures are also visible. Two figures are preserved on the back. (J. Powers, 2016)

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The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.



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