Egyptian Funerary Art Upstages Americana At The Cobbs Sale

Originally published July 28, 2009 | Antiques and the Arts Online | by Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo

This article features a blurb about the auction of a Roman Era wooden portrait. As Indiana Jones would say, "It belongs in a museum."

The highlight was not early American, however, but early Egyptian — a Fayum sarcophagus portrait of a woman provoked a competition among nine phone bidders and only ended when it went to one for $143,750. The Egyptian painting dates to the Roman First Century AD and depicts a woman with earrings and two necklaces. It came from a Peterborough collector whose husband purchased it in New York City in the 1960s. It was accompanied by a letter verifying the purchase because the original receipt had not been located at the time of the auction. The portrait went to a London dealer buying for a client.