Fragmentary Head of Amenhotep II
Fragmentary Head of Amenhotep II
Circa 1428-1397 B.C., Reign of Amenhotep II, 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom, Egypt
Granite
H: 23 cm, W: 15 cm, D: 20 cm
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A fragmentary head carved from black granite, identified as pharaoh Amenhotep II. The pharaoh wears the striped nemes headdress, with two large coils of the uraeus serpent remaining above the centre of the forehead. The wide band at the base of the headdress covers the forehead and extends down to the leaf ear, which is carved in only simple detail – most of Amenhotep II’s portraits position the ureaus at the bottom of the band, but this feature is no longer visible. The beginnings of the pleated lappets that would have extended onto the king’s shoulders are visible to the left of the neck, and the headdress is drawn towards a gathered pigtail at the base of the skull. Three horizontal rings of this gathering remain. The proper left side of the face is the best preserved, with the squared ends of the eyebrows and extended cosmetic lines widening towards the edges of the face. The lips are small but well defined, with particular emphasis on the projecting lower lip and a pronounced depression between the base of the lips and the squarish, almost double, chin. The Adam’s apple is also clearly pronounced.
Some scholars divide Amenhotep II’s portraits into two types: an earlier, youthful type, and a later, idealising type. This example would fall into the former type, which combines a short face with full cheeks, squarish chin, slight smile, and flared cosmetic lines. Most portraits of Amenhotep II have been found in the Theban area, so this portrait may well have originally been part of a seated or standing statue in a temple court or sanctuary at Karnak or in Amenhotep’s mortuary temple on the west bank at Thebes.[1]
Amenhotep II (r. circa 1428-1397 B.C.) was the seventh pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, son of Thutmose III. Although his reign lasted less than thirty years, he brought several military campaigns to their successful conclusions in Syria-Palestine to the northeast and in Nubia to the south. He spearheaded ambitious building projects all along the Nile, and left several unique texts praising his athletic abilities. Like Tutankhamun, Amenhotep II was one of the small number of pharaohs whose mummy was discovered still within his own well-preserved tomb in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes (Tomb 35).
The Collector’s Eye: Masterpieces of Egyptian Art from the Thalassic Collection, Ltd., Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, US, 11 April 2001 – 6 January 2002, no. 7.
The Dikran Kelekian Collection, Part I, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 21-23 October 1953, Lot 36 (part).
Peter Lacovara, Betsy Teasley Trope, Sue H. D’Auria (eds.), The Collector’s Eye: Masterpieces of Egyptian Art from the Thalassic Collection, Ltd., exhibition catalogue, Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, 2001, no. 7, pp. 12-13.
Previously with Dikran Khan Kelekian (1867-1951), New York, previously on an early-twentieth century style wooden mount (as visible in 1979 photographs).
Thence by descent to Charles Dikran Kelekian (1899-1982), New York, accompanied by black and white film dated 4 June 1979.
With Peter Scharrer, New York, by at least 1992.
Private Collection of Theodore Halkedis (1932-2001) and Aristea S. Halkedis (1933-2014), ‘The Thalassic Collection’, New York, acquired from the above on 2 July 1992, accompanied by 1 March 1995 inventory.
Private Collection of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al Thani (1966-2014), London, acquired from the above via Christie’s New York Private Treaty (along with the whole Thalassic collection) on/around 25th June 2002.
Thence by descent, London.
ALR: S00261595, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database.
Dikran Khan Kelekian (1867-1951, also known as Dikran Garabed Kélékian) was a collector and dealer of ancient, medieval, and Islamic art. Of Armenian heritage and born in Turkey, he and his brother Kevork established an antiquities business in Istanbul in circa 1892. In the following year, Kelekian travelled to the United States as a commissioner for the Persian pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Together, he and his brother established many shops around the world. In New York, they opened shops at 709 Fifth Avenue, then at 598 Madison Avenue, and later at 20 East 57th Street; in Paris they had shops at 10, rue Rossini, and later, at 2, Place Vendôme; they also ran a shop in London and one in Cairo. Kelekian played a substantial role in the formation of the Coptic, Early Christian, and Classical collections of Henry Walters (later founder of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore) and the Gothic collection of George Blumenthal, a financier and the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He was also well known as an early champion of modern French painters. Kelekian died in January 1951, when he fell from the twenty-first floor of the Hotel St. Moritz in New York.
His son, Charles Dikran Kelekian (1899-1982) was born in Marseilles, France in 1982. Charles joined his father in the family business in 1919, and they worked together in their galleries in New York and Paris. The Kelekians sold major works to most of the leading museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Kelekian was most interested in Egyptian art, Islamic ceramics, and Coptic textiles. Charles Wilkinson, curator emeritus of Near Eastern art at the Met Museum, said, “Charles had a very fine eye, and also he was very sensitive to colour. He really truly loved the antiquities he handled”. Roy Neuberger, a stockbroker and collector of modern art and antiquities also praised the Kelekians, describing Charles as “one of the three of four major dealers in ancient art and a man of the utmost integrity. He was respected by everyone. His gallery is a virtual museum”. Until his death in 1982, Kelekian worked every day at his gallery at 667 Madison Avenue with his daughter, Nanette Rodney Kelekian.
Theodore Halkedis (1932-2001) was a Philadelphia-born Greek shipping magnate. His collecting habits took shape through his acquisition of items from the Grand Tour and those of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Egyptology, in particular those of the watercolourist David Roberts. These objects inspired him to start collecting ancient Egyptian objects themselves.
Theodore and his wife Aristea (1933-2014) acquired more than 175 Egyptian objects for their collection, which they named The Thalassic Collection – from monumental statues to amulets and jewellery, as well as funerary and ritualistic objects. An exhibition honouring this exceptional collection was held at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta from 2001-2002.
