Ivory Plaque with a Winged Female Genie before a Palmette Tree
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
A plaque of ivory eight centimetres high shows a winged female figure in profile facing left, standing before a tree of stylised palmettes and scrolling stems. She wears the double crown of Egypt, a long wig and a long close-fitting dress, and one wing sweeps down behind her. Traces of gold leaf survive on the foliage, and purple stains on the wing, the wig and the tree mark where more gilding once sat. The composition was symmetrical: a second genie faced her across the tree, but the plaque is cut before the trunk and that half is lost.
The Egyptian crown and wig are a costume rather than a subject. Phoenician workshops on the Levantine coast borrowed Egyptian motifs freely and produced luxury furniture for the courts of Syria, and the Assyrians took such furniture as tribute and booty. This plaque was found near the north wall of room fourteen in the Building of the Ivories at Arslan Tash, the Assyrian residence at ancient Hadatu in northern Syria, during the 1928 excavations, and came to the Louvre through the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? The purple stains on the ivory are the ghosts of vanished gold leaf, a chemical trace left where gilding once glittered.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.