the circular base cast with bosses and rising to a spool-form pedestal around which Nubian hunters on horseback attempt to lasso fleeing ostriches in a desert landscape, the stem formed as a fully modeled ancient Egyptian noblewoman supporting the egg above her head, the egg enclosed by three openwork straps topped by the masks of male Egyptians, the spreading upper rim engraved with a similar hunting scene and including depictions of a fallen rider, young ostriches feeding in the shade of palm trees and a snake emerging from desert grasses, the domed cover with finial formed as a female huntress with bow kneeling on her kill, marked on base rim
24⁵⁄₈ (62.5 cm.) high

Anonymous sale; Christie's, Amsterdam, 26 May 1998, lot 124.