Skip Navigation

Collection Menu
<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_PS2.jpg)
Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_PS2.jpg)
<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_PS2.jpg)

Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_PS2.jpg)

<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_front_PS2.jpg)

Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_front_PS2.jpg)

<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.61.49_tlf.jpg)

Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.61.49_tlf.jpg)

<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_back_PS2.jpg)

Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_back_PS2.jpg)

<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49.jpg)

Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49.jpg)

<em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_bw.jpg)

Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_bw.jpg)

DOWNLOAD

Female Ancestral Bust

Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

Ancestral busts were kept in the home, perhaps used in rituals that helped maintain the deceased in the afterlife or allowed the living and dead to communicate. Both of these busts were made about the same time and demonstrate how even a cheaper pottery example could be exquisitely made and decorated, though clearly a painted limestone bust would have been more expensive to commission.
This text refers to these objects: 61.49; 54.1
MEDIUM Clay, pigment
  • Possible Place Collected: Thebes (Deir el Medina), Egypt
    • DATES ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E.
    DYNASTY Dynasty 18 to Dynasty 19
    PERIOD New Kingdom
    DIMENSIONS 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm)  (show scale)
    COLLECTIONS Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 61.49
    CREDIT LINE Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
    CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Pottery “ancestral bust” of a woman. Red slip, black wig, with braid at back. Necklace in black of single cord with lotus flowers, leaves and buds suspended on front; details of face moulded and painted, open base. Condition: Poor. Head broken off and reset, part of wig lost, lower part of body lost and restored. Body cracked on right side.
    EXHIBITIONS
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION Female Ancestral Bust, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_PS2.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 61.49_PS2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2007
    "CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
    RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY
    You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
    RECORD COMPLETENESS
    Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
    <em>Female Ancestral Bust</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 6 5/16 x 3 x 2 5/16 in. (16 x 7.6 x 5.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 61.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 61.49_PS2.jpg)

    TAGS

    female
    bust
    female ancestral bust
    pottery
    painted
    head
    woman
    damaged
    broken
    Ancestral
    ca. 1539-1190 B.C.E.
    ceramic
    Dayr
    al-Madinah
    Deir el Medineh
    personal
    religion
    worship
    Egyptian
    Egypt
    New Kingdom
    18th-19th Dynasty

    TAGS

    female
    bust
    female ancestral bust
    pottery
    painted
    head
    woman
    damaged
    broken
    Ancestral
    ca. 1539-1190 B.C.E.
    ceramic
    Dayr
    al-Madinah
    Deir el Medineh
    personal
    religion
    worship
    Egyptian
    Egypt
    New Kingdom
    18th-19th Dynasty

    RELATED OBJECTS

    Mother and Child: A Modern Madonna Olla or Jar Water Jar On the Heights The Fitting Un Regard Fugitif Children Rollerskating Mrs.Thomas Mumford VI Making Babies for Indian Market Mummy and Portrait of Demetrios Sennefer Hollow Figure of a Trussed Duck Kohl Tube in the Form of a Fish Milk Vase Single Strand Necklace with Disk Beads Two Princesses Necklace Shabty of Nesi-ta-nebet-Isheru, Daughter of Pinedjem II Shabty of the Princess Nesi-Khonsu Shabty of Queen Henuttawy Statuette of a Striding Man Blue-Painted Storage Jar Grain Storage Jar with Blue-Painted Lotus Plants and Floral Collar Palette with Two Stylized Bird Heads Blue-painted Storage Jar Tall, Round-Bottomed Jar Group Statuette Dish with Two Geese Apis Bull Horus Falcon-Form Coffin Jar with Boat Designs Jar with Zigzag Panels Pair of Clappers in Form of Human Hands Earrings in Form of Pendant Lotus Flowers Appliqué of Bound Prisoner Elaborately Painted Shroud of Neferhotep, Son of Herrotiou Headrest with Two Images of the God Bes Heart Scarab of DjedmutesAnkh Amulet of the Goddess Taweret Hoop Isis-knot Amulet Noblewoman Statuette of a Girl The Elder Sister, reduction (La soeur aînée, réduction) Portrait of Madame Tallien Fragmentary Stela