Statuette of the Cat Bastet 

An extremely well-modelled bronze figure of a cat from ancient Egypt. The cat sits in the typical pose for these statuettes, facing ahead with the forepaws placed in line with the rear legs. The tail curls around the true right side of the cat’s flanks, resting with the tip just in front of the right forepaw. The cat’s musculature is supple and smoothly curved, with particular naturalistic details such as the line of the shoulder blades on the back, and the V-like diagonals of the rear haunches finely articulated. The facial features are similarly well-defined: angular cheekbones frame the nose and jaw, with the minutiae of the nostrils and philtrum rendered in clear incised lines. The angular eyes are recessed, and were likely originally inlaid with stones or other precious material. The two large ears, damaged at the tips, are pierced with small holes that would have held earrings. The figure is hollow, with an ovoid opening at the base, and a rectangular shaft protruding downwards which would have been used to affix the statuette to another object. 
 
Cats were the sacred animal of the goddess Bastet – originally a lion-headed goddess who eventually became the gentler counterpart of the warrior goddess Sekhmet and more associated with the domestic cat. Bastet was a protector of Lower Egypt and defender of the pharaoh and the sun-god Ra; she is often represented battling Ra’s enemy, the snake Apep. She was one of several deities associated with the apotropaic symbol of the right wedjat-eye, or Eye of Ra. Bastet was a goddess of protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits, and a goddess of pregnancy and childbirth. Many bronze cat statuettes were dedicated to Bastet in temples throughout Egypt, centring in the city of Bubastis in the Nile delta. Bubastis was home to a large population of cats who were cared for by Bastet’s devotees, and buried in the temple precincts when they died. Hollow statuettes, such as this one, may have held mummified cats that were placed in Bastet’s temples as votive offerings. 
 
Cats were originally domesticated by Egyptians in the Middle Kingdom, who used them for their hunting abilities, but by the New Kingdom they had become valued household companions. The earliest three-dimensional representation of a cat dates from the Middle Kingdom, and was used as a cosmetic vessel (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990.59.1). Painted tomb scenes depict cats seated beneath their owner’s chairs and on hunting boats, where they assisted their masters by flushing out the birds in the Nile marshes. 

Collection A. Raifé. Antiquités, Monnaies & Médailles, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 18-25 March 1867, p. ix, either Lot 212 or Lot 213. 

Previously in the Private Collection of Adolphe Raifé (1802-1860), 9 rue de Lille, Paris, by at least 1860, with handwritten collection label. 
Thence by descent to his son-in-law Gustave Gosset (1826-after 1860), 9 rue de Lille, Paris. 
Private Collection of Julien Bessonneau (1842-1916), Angers. 
Thence by descent. 
Private Collection of Jean-Pierre (b. 1936) and Liliane (1940-2016) Leveilley, Angers, acquired from the above, in the 1970s or 1980s. 
ALR: S00260436, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database. 

Adolphe Raifé (1802-1860) was born in Paris in 1802 and studied Near Eastern languages at L’école des Jeunes de langues, with a focus on Arabic. Described in his early life as an artist, with a handful of surviving engravings and lithographs attesting to this, Raifé began collecting art, antiques, books, and prints at the age of eighteen. He pursued his interests as an amateur archaeologist, travelling to the Near East with his brother at the start of 1921; first visiting Greece and then arriving in Istanbul (then Constantinople) during uprisings that formed part of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923). The brothers became involved in a street fight and had to launch a swift retreat, while injured, onto a ship returning to France immediately. However, Alphonse’s brother died of his injuries upon their return. Raifé resumed his travels in 1824 and 1825, when he journeyed through Italy. He spent a long time in Rome, living with a colony of artists, includes Ingres and Léopold Robert. He continued on to Wallachia (a region of modern-day Romania), Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania – all regions that were rarely visited by Europeans in those days and a far broader scope of travel than that covered by the standard Grand Tour. Raifé also returned to Greece and Turkey, and then into Syria and Egypt. He acquired many of the antiquities in his collection during his travels, and made several detailed studies and sketches of the sites he visited.

After his return to Paris, Raifé devoted his attentions to his collection. He first focused exclusively on acquiring rare books and prints for several years, before focusing on antiquities and art from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the final two years of his life. He acquired pieces from auction houses and dealers in Paris, aiming to establish a collection which could represent a full history of art from ancient to modern times, spanning from Egypt to America. He kept his collection at his home on 9 rue de Lille, where he studied it and supplemented his notes by consulting the books in his expansive library.

Following his death in 1860, the collection was inherited by his son-in-law, Gustave Gosset (1826-after 1860). It was kept in Raifé’s Parisian townhouse and gradually dispersed during a series of public sales between 1863 and 1867. The antiquities collection remained intact until the 18-27 March 1867 sale at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris. The Assyriologist and Archaeologist François Lenormant was the expert for the sale and wrote the catalogue, which was intended as a lasting record of Raifé’s extensive collection, rather than a simple note of the sale. The catalogue featured twelve woodcuts by the artist Adrien Féart, reproducing some of the works in the collection. The sale was attended by dealers, such as Claude Camille Rollin, and well-known collectors, including Louis de Clercq and Arnold Morel-Fatio. Museums were also represented, with the Louvre acquiring fifteen objects from the Egyptian collection through the curator Emmanuel de Rougé. The British Museum acquired nine Egyptian lots from the sale through an intermediary. In total, the 1867 sale drew in 41,404 francs.

Julien Bessonneau (1842-1916) was born on 21 March 1842 in Saint-Clément-de-la-Place, Angers, to a wealthy family of farm-owners and industrialists. He married the daughter of François Besnard in 1869, and began working with Besnard’s rope and string company, Corderie du Mail. This company became Établissements Bessonneau, a linen and hemp-weaving company, which made Bessonneau the leading industrialist in Angers in the 1870s. By the start of the First World War, one in sixteen Angers residents worked for Bessonneau’s company. In 1876, he became mayor of Saint-Clément-de-la-Place, a position which he held until his death in 1916. Bessonneau provided logistical and financial support for René Gasnier’s aeronautical endeavours, installing large tents to protect the aeroplanes at races and helping to organise events. Bessonneau also established a relief fund for workers, nurseries, a musical band, and sports facilities – including a football club which became today’s Angers SCO, and their home stadium (now known as Stade Raymond-Kopa).

Bessonneau had two impressive residences in Angers – Château des Brosses and Château des Múrs, one wing of which was dubbed the ‘museum’ – and a Parisian residence on rue de Constantine. Here, he displayed his large collection of ancient and modern paintings, decorative arts, sculptures, African and Oceanic art, and antiquities. A 1916 inventory of his estate reveals the extent of his holdings, listing items such as ‘one hundred vases and objects from Cyprus, Greece, and Phoenicia’, and ‘forty Gallo-Roman vases’. Bessonneau kept meticulous records of his collection, including his purchase invoices from notable dealers such as the Indjudjian brothers and Georges Monolakos, some notes regarding intermediaries he used, and a few auction sales slips.

After Bessonneau’s death on 4 August 1916, his heirs did not expand the collection any further, and the objects were steadily dispersed at various sales, including a 1956 auction of a group of paintings.

Jean-Pierre Léveilley (b. 1936) was born into a family of industrialists and property owners in Algeria (then the French department of Algiers) in 1936. The Léveilley family ran successful furniture factories in Bordeaux and Algiers from the end of the nineteenth century onwards, and developed an interest in art, particularly Orientalist paintings. Léveilley studied at l’École nationale des Beaux-Arts d’Alger in the 1950s, before joining the family business. He enlisted in the army, married Liliane (1940-2016) in 1962, and received a departure of no return in 1965. The couple settled in Angers in 1965, and ran the thriving antique store ‘Au coin du feu’ on the rue Toussaint for the next forty years. They established a strong network of sellers and buyers, allowing them to build their personal collection of anything and everything that interested them. Jean-Pierre was said to learn and collect as quickly as he bought and sold. Some notable customers include the esteemed collectors Jacques Deschamps and Alex Brunet.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Léveilley took advantage of the opportunity to acquire a large part of Bessonneau’s archaeology collection. They patiently continued to acquire objects from Bessonneau’s collection until the early 2020s, when Jean-Pierre donated 324 pieces to the city of Angers in October 2023. These pieces, including paintings by Gérôme and Isabey, Native American ceramics and objets d’art and historical objects from the Anjou region, as well as large numbers of Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian antiquities, are now distributed between two local museums.