A Fragment of an Ivory Statue at the British Museum

Abstract

About three years ago I sent some slight notes on chryselephantine sculpture to the Journal, but withdrew them again for expansion. In the main they were intended to bring out the value, as evidence of the methods used in working ivory for statues, of a small ivory mask in the British Museum. The article by Signor Carlo Albizzati on an ivory mask in the Vatican, published in the last part of the Journal, offers a new occasion for calling attention to the London fragment. In the ‘Guide to the Second Vase Room’ by Newton and Murray (Part I. 1878) it was described thus: ‘No. 15, Part of a Mask. The forehead, cheeks, chin, and nose cut off with smooth joints; the sockets of the eyes empty: the base of the nose is broad, and the lips full and prominent, as in the Egyptian type; inside the nostrils are the remains of vermilion. The mask has probably been completed with other carvings fitted on at the joints and with eyes in some other material. Height 3½ inches. Bequeathed by Sir Wm. Temple.’ The wording of this suggests that the fragment was supposed to be a part of some ornamental composition, but it will not now be doubted, I believe, that it is a part of a head in the round which was made up of several pieces. Our fragment—the central part of the face—had next to it two side pieces to complete the cheeks and another for the chin.