Cosmetic Spoon: Girl Swimming with a Duck
Unknown · Reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1349 BC
A naked girl stretches out full length, arms forward, swimming. She wears only a belt and a necklace, her hair is a short cap, and in her outstretched hands she pushes a duck through the water. The duck is the useful part: its body is hollow, and its two wings swivel open to reveal the bowl in which a perfumed ointment or a cosmetic paste was kept. Look at the tiny engraved feathers and at the girl's body, stretched into a straight line nearly thirty centimetres long. The wood is dark; the paler parts may be ivory.
Spoons of this kind belong to the luxury of the court of Amenhotep III, when Egypt was at peace and rich, and craftsmen turned everyday objects into little sculptures. The swimming girl with a duck was a favourite theme, repeated many times, and it may carry a hidden meaning: the girl could stand for the sky goddess Nut and the duck for the sun she carries across the water, or she may simply be a pleasing image of youth for a lady's dressing table. The spoon came to the Louvre in 1852 with the collection of the French doctor Clot Bey.
Did You Know? The duck's wings pivot open to reveal the bowl, so the whole spoon is also a little box with a lid.
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