Relief with a Harpist
Relief with a Harpist
Circa 1550-1069 B.C., 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom, Egypt
Limestone
H: 40.0 cm, W: 39.5 cm
£78,000
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A scene from the limestone wall of a New Kingdom tomb, carved in low relief and painted in polychrome. The relief depicts the tomb owner, standing on the right and wearing a short kilt with a longer overskirt of fine, almost translucent linen (an indication of his wealth). At two registers tall, his head and shoulders are cut off at the top of the fragment. The upper register visible depicts offerings of food, while the middle register represents two musicians. A female harpist kneels behind the tomb owner, with a percussionist kneeling behind her. Of the lowest register, the head and shoulder of two short-haired men smelling lotus flowers are visible, cut off by the bottom edge.
Banqueting scenes, such as this one, are represented in almost all 18th Dynasty Theban tombs, as part of the decorative schema portraying moments from ‘Daily Life’. These scenes were richly detailed, with an emphasis on the sensual elements of the banquet, representing the plethora of food, music, and scents on offer. Lotus flowers are frequently being sniffed by the guests, which scholars previously believed would have had a narcotic effect, but have a recent analysis suggests that it would have served as an aphrodisia. As all of the participants in the banquets are of procreative age, it is possible that these scenes were intended to represent the tomb-owner’s continuing virility and fertility in the afterlife.
Schætze Alt Ægyptischer Kunst, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 27 June-13 September 1953, no 148.
Schætze Alt Ægyptischer Kunst, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 27 June-13 September 1953, no 148, p. 57.
Previously in a Private Collection, Paris, by at least 1953.
With Marvin Kagan Art, Inc., New York, by at least 1987.
Private Collection of Sylvan (1938-2025) and Joan Schefler, New York, acquired from the above on 9 November 1987.
ALR: S00267394, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database.
Sylvan Schefler (1938-2025), affectionately known as ‘Bear’, was born in Belgium to a Jewish family that moved to America during the Second World War. He graduated from Cornell University, where he met his future wife, Joan Schefler (née Kanstoren). They married in 1959 in New York. Sylvan started his career as an investment banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert the same year, and had become a partner by 1968, and a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee by 1971. He went on to found his own firm, Maxima Group LLC, and rejoined Burnham Securities as Managing Director of Investment Banking, before serving as Vice Chairman and Senior Managing Director at Tigress Financial Partners. He was also a passionate sports fan – a lifelong fan of the New York Giants and the New York Rangers, and a proud member of the ‘Super Bowl Five’, a small group of people who attended every Super Bowl since its formation.
Together, Sylvan and Joan built a strong collection of antiquities, starting with a small Roman tear-glass vial that they bought at a souk in the old city of Jerusalem. This one glass sparked their interest in learning all that they could about glassware and the ancient societies which crafted it. They travelled widely and acquired pieces from auctions, dealers, and attended private tours of museums with their curators. They acquired most of the works in their collection in the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a growing interest in antiquities and Roman glass, in particular. They bought from sales of major collections, including the Constable-Maxwell, Ernst Kofler and Marthe Truniger, Benzian, and Giorgio Sangiorgi collections.
Sylvan died at the age of 87, shortly after his and Joan’s 66th wedding anniversary. He is survived by his wife, and his three beloved daughters, Dawn, Hope, and Nikki; his grandchildren, Amanda, David, Emily, Zachary, Julia, Harrison, Jeremy, Jack, Justin; and his brothers, Arno and Joseph.
