REIGN OF ASHURBANIPAL, CIRCA 669-631 B.C.

Name: AN ASSYRIAN GYPSUM RELIEF PANEL
Brand: REIGN OF ASHURBANIPAL, CIRCA 669-631 B.C.
Price: 140000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

Price Realised USD 175,000

Estimate

USD 100,000 - USD 150,000

Closed: 16 Jun 2020

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AN ASSYRIAN GYPSUM RELIEF PANEL

REIGN OF ASHURBANIPAL, CIRCA 669-631 B.C.

Price Realised USD 175,000

Closed: 16 Jun 2020

Price Realised USD 175,000

Closed: 16 Jun 2020

Details Lot Essay Related Articles More from

16³⁄₈ in. (41.5 cm.) high

Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910), Mosul, excavated in the North Palace between 1853-1855.
Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), dispatched from the above.
Sir William Gregory (1816-1892), Dublin and London, gifted from the above; thence by descent to his son, William Robert Gregory (1881-1918), Coole Park, County Gregory and London; thence by descent to his daughter, Catherine Kennedy (1913-1999), Loughananna House, County Cork.
The Property of Catherine Kennedy; Antiquities, Sotheby's, London, 16 July 1962, lot 20.
with K.J. Hewett (1919-1994), London, acquired from the above.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1965 (Art of the Ancient World, vol. 1, no. 91).
Acquired by the current owner by 1976.

E. Weidner, et al., “Altorientalische Altertümer in Museen und Privatsammlungen,“ Archiv für Orientforschung 20, 1963, p. 200, fig. 17a.
R.D. Barnett, Sculpture from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C.), London 1976, p. 44, pl. xxx,b.

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Lot Essay

This relief was once part of a procession of prisoners being deported from Babylonia to Assyria following Ashurbanipal’s victory over his older brother Shamash-shumu-ukin, King of Babylon, in 648 B.C. Preserved here are two women walking to the left through a grove of date palms. Both wear ankle-length garments with some fringe details delineated. The lead figure has her right hand raised while in the other she holds the neck of a bottle-shaped vessel, likely a water skin. The second figure holds a water skin over her right shoulder.
Following his conquests in Babylonia and Elam in 646-644 B.C., Ashurbanipal built a new palace in the capital city of Nineveh. This new structure, today called the North Palace, was known as , the “House of Government” (see pp. 20ff, Brereton, ed., ). The present relief is thought to have once decorated the walls of Courtyard J, situated between the throne room and the private quarters of the palace. Adjoining slabs from the same relief are today in the Museo Barracco, Rome and the Oriental Museum, Durham (pls. xxx,a and c in Barnett, op. cit.). Similar scenes adorned other parts of the North Palace, including the throne room, Room M (see the lower register of the relief in the British Museum, fig. 237 in Brereton, op. cit.).
The North Palace was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in December 1853, while still serving as agent for the British Museum. This relief, together with the adjoining slabs, must have been dispatched to Layard by Rassam prior to the termination of the museum’s excavations in 1855. Layard gifted the present relief to his friend, Sir William Gregory (1816-1892). It was later inherited by Sir William’s son, Robert Gregory (1881-1918), who was Layard’s godson, and thence by descent to Robert’s daughter, Catherine Kennedy (1913-1999).