Skip to main content

ArtAncient

Recognized
5 / 5
London, GB
THANKS!
Message
Follow

About ArtAncient

ArtAncient specialises in fine works of ancient art, with a particular focus on beautiful, decorative and well provenanced pieces. From dazzling, opalescent fossils, powerfully sculpted Greek body armour and sensuously carved Roman marbles to the most incredible examples of large meteorites. Founded by the director in 2008 after more than 10 years experience in the business, we have grown to become prominent dealers, having exhibited at major art fairs and sold to important museums and collectors. ArtAncient are committee members of the ADA and members of IADAA, LAPAD...Read More

ArtAncient

Established in 20081stDibs seller since 2014

Associations

LAPADA - The Association of Arts & Antiques Dealers

International Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers' Associations

The British Antique Dealers' Association

Contact Info

Featured Pieces

Ancient Egyptian Monumental Temple Sphinxes
Located in London, GB
A pair of monumental limestone sphinxes of Pharaoh Nectanebo I, from the processional avenue of the Serapeum of Memphis, 30th Dynasty, circa 379 - 360 BC. The sphinxes of the Serapeum have captivated travellers since Roman times. However, despite their significance, they are conspicuously absent from the collections of most major museums. Indeed, their existence in private hands is so improbable, and their imitations so numerous, that the present sphinxes were assumed to be modern copies throughout their recent ownership history. Finally recognised and conserved after an extraordinary chance discovery at a garden furniture sale...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Egyptian Egyptian Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Limestone

Fossilized Wood Cross-Section
Located in London, GB
Fossilised Colla Wood Cross-Section Miocene, circa 23-5 Million years before present Recovered near the town of Zile, Turkey Fossilised wood fragment displ...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Natural Specimens

Materials

Other

Tyrannosaurus Rex Tooth in Fossil Matrix
Located in London, GB
Tyrannosaurus Rex Tooth in Fossil Matrix. Late Cretaceous, circa 65 Million years before present. Lance Formation, Marchant Ranch Quarry, Niobrara County, Wy...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Natural Specimens

Materials

Other

Exceptional Egyptian Sarcophagus Mask
Located in London, GB
Exceptionally Fine Wooden Sarcophagus Mask Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, circa 1069-945 BC. Acacia wood, rosewood, hippopotamus ivory Masterfully carved from a single piece of fine-grained hardwood, the present mask is characteristic of the most exquisite funerary art made during the 21st Dynasty, and was probably commissioned for a particularly high-ranking individual. The oval face displays a gently smiling mouth with full, outlined lips, furrows at the corners and a bow-shaped philtrum. The straight nose with rounded nostrils, the cheeks full and fleshy and the large, almond shaped eyes with heavy lids and tapering cosmetic lines, set below long, sweeping eyebrows. Social collapse across the Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age meant that the 21st Dynasty in Egypt was a period of great turmoil. Trade routes were disrupted, governments collapsed, and mass migration occurred. Economic scarcity meant that traditional funerary practices in Egypt were also affected, with a lack of material and financial resources leading to the reuse of preexisting material. As a result, during the 21st Dynasty, 19th and 20th Dynasty coffins changed ownership rapidly and were heavily recycled for new purposes. Tombs were also unmarked allowing them to be shared by many people. These new practices brought forth a shift in the understanding of funerary paraphernalia. No longer important objects owned forever by the deceased, they were now simply seen as short-term transformative devices, whose symbolic and ritualistic meaning could be appropriated for others. However, paradoxically, the art of coffin-making also reached new heights during this period, and many of the richly dec- orated “yellow” coffins, characteristic of the 21st Dynasty, are remarkable works of art in their own right. Indeed, knowing that coffins were being reused throughout Egypt, the Egyptian élite set themself apart by commissioning lavish sarcophagi decorated with the images and texts meant to help guide them to the afterlife, and which would otherwise have adorned the tomb walls. As coffins were the chief funerary element which now identified the dead and allowed them a physical presence in the world of the living, their quality and appearance were of the utmost importance. The traditional coffin ensemble was made of three parts: a wooden mummy cover, which laid directly atop the mummy, an inner coffin, and an outer coffin, both made of a lid and case. Additional decorative elements, such as masks, were carved out separately and later glued or pegged to the lids. After the completion of the painted decoration, the sarcophagus was covered in a varnish to give it its yellow colour. Gilding was sometimes used for the coffins of the high priests’ families, notably on parts representing naked skin, such as the face mask. However, some of the élite tactically avoided gilding altogether as to ensure that their coffin would not be looted. When manufacturing the inner and outer coffins, particular attention was paid to the woodwork. Displaying the skill of the carpenter, this type of funerary art has largely remained unparalleled throughout Egyptian history. The principal wood used to craft the present mask is Acacia nilotica. The evergreen Egyptian acacia was considered sacred and said to be the tree of life, the birthplace of the god Horus, as well as symbolic of Osiris, the god of the dead and resurrection. The modelling of the face in the wood is superb, but the inlays also help mark this mask out as exceptional. Inlaid eyes and eyebrows were extremely rare and reserved to the finest and most expensive coffins. Traditionally, eyes were made of calcite, obsidian, or quartz, and eyebrows of coloured glass paste or bronze. Here, the pupils, eyebrows, and cosmetic lines are inlaid with Dalbergia melanoxylon, a rare type of wood which belongs to the rosewood genus. In antiquity, however, it was known as Ebony of the Pharaohs, from the Egyptian word “hbny”, meaning dark timber, because of its black, lustrous appearance. An extremely dense and hard wood requiring significant skill to work with, ebony was a luxury material highly coveted by the pharaohs themselves, to make furniture, decorative and funerary objects. The wood was imported with great effort from the southern Land of Punt, most likely modern Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea, alongside other luxury goods such as gold and ivory. A magnificent ebony throne, recovered in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, illustrates the incredible aesthetic potential of this material and why it was so highly valued by Egyptian royalty. Only élite members of Egyptian society could have afford- ed Ebony of the Pharaoh inlays for their funerary mask. The sclerae on the present piece were once both inlaid with hippopotamus ivory. Whiter than elephant ivory, this type of ivory is also denser, and more difficult to carve. The use of this luxury material, reputed for its gleaming appearance, enhances the lifelikeness of the eyes. For the Egyptians, hippopotamus ivory was imbued with magic powers. The hippopotamus was indeed both feared and venerated due to its aggressive behaviour. Whilst the male hippopotamus was associated with danger and chaos, the female was benevolent and invoked for protection, especially of the house and of mothers and their children, through the hippopotamus goddess Tawaret. Thus, not only was hippopotamus ivory used as an inlay and to make practical objects, such as combs and clappers, but it was also used to make talismans like apotropaic wands or knives. Made during a time of scarcity where few could afford made-to-order coffins, the present mask could have only belonged to one of the highest-ranking individuals in society. Undoubtedly one of the finest Egyptian coffin...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Egyptian Egyptian Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Fruitwood, Hardwood

Ancient Greek Corinthian Helmet
Located in London, GB
Corinthian helmet with Bull Horns and Lotus Flower Decoration. Archaic Period, c.550-500 BC. Cast, hammered and incised bronze. An exceptionally well preserved example of one of the most iconic ancient Greek...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier European Classical Greek Mounted Objects

Materials

Bronze

Bronze Age Cypriot Plank Idol
Located in London, GB
Cypriot Plank Idol Early Bronze Age III - Middle Bronze Age I, c. 2100 - 1850 BC. Low fired burnished earthenware pottery with lime-filled incisions A Cypriot plank idol, an iconic ...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Cypriot Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Terracotta

Huge Tyrannosaurus Rex Fossil Femur
Located in London, GB
Fossilised Tyrannosaurus Rex Femur Late Cretaceous, circa 67 Million years before present Height: 3 foot and 11.5 inches. Found on the Orwick Ranch, Butte County, South Dakota, July 7th 2020. An enormous fossilised femur, one of the largest examples known, from an adult Tyrannosaurus Rex measuring an estimated 12 metres in length and weighing up to 7 tonnes. A beautifully preserved, sculptural fossil, with a mottled dark brown surface. Found in Butte County, South Dakota, this fossil comes from the Hell Creek ecosystem, where the first T. rex fossils were unearthed in 1902 by Barnum Brown, a palaeontologist with the American Museum of Natural History. On 25 July 1902, in sheer awe of his discovery, Brown wrote, ‘Quarry No. 1 contains the femur, pubes, humerus, three vertebrae and two undetermined bones of a large Carnivorous Dinosaur... I have never seen anything like it from the Cretaceous.’ The genus was first classified following its complete excavation in 1905. In that year, Henry Fairfield Osborne, President of the American Museum of Natural History, stated: ‘I propose to make this animal the type of a new genus, Tyrannosaurus, in reference to its size, which greatly exceeds that of any carnivorous land animal hitherto described...’ Osborne could not help celebrating his museum’s spectacular acquisition. He further stated that ‘This animal is in fact the ne plus ultra of the evolution of the large carnivorous dinosaurs: in brief it is entitled to the royal and high sounding group name which I have applied to it...’ This name - deriving from the Greek and Latin for ‘tyrant lizard king...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier American Natural Specimens

Materials

Stone

Extraterrestrial Iron Meteorite Sphere
Located in London, GB
Aletai Meteorite Sphere Iron - IIIE circa 4.5 Billion years old A perfect metallic sphere, extracted from the core of the famous Aletai Meteorite, di...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Chinese Natural Specimens

Materials

Other

Late Bronze Age Sword
Located in London, GB
Saint Nazaire Sword, Late Bronze Age, circa 800-900 B.C. An exceptionally well preserved Bronze Age sword, with elegant, finely incised decorations,...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier French Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Extraordinary Iridescent Ammonite Fossil
Located in London, GB
A magnificent example of one of the most spectacular fossils. A large and intensely vibrant ammonite, Placenticeras costatum, from the Bearpaw formation, Alberta, Canada, dating to t...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Canadian Natural Specimens

Materials

Other

Sculptural Oriented Meteorite
Located in London, GB
Oriented Chondrite Meteorite Circa 4.56 Billion y/o Chondrite 24 x 20 cm, 28 cm tall on base 7.1 kg A sculptural and beautifully weathered chondrite meteorite; upon entering the atmosphere, this extraterrestrial stone would have heated the surrounding air to a temperature of over 1700 C, higher than that of the hottest lava on the planet, and enough to melt away its outer layers, leaving its surface rippled with regmaglypts, thumb-shaped impressions formed as superheated rock streaked off of the main body as it careened toward the earth. The last layer of the rock to melt would have re-solidified as the meteorite made impact, forming a charcoal coloured fusion crust, which has taken on a deep ochre-tinted patina. Chondrite meteorites such as this example were formed at the very beginning of our solar system, by the accretion of various types of dust and small grains, adrift in the vacuum of space and, as such, provide important clues about the birth of our own planet. This piece is an especially rare specimen, known as an oriented meteorite...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Natural Specimens

Materials

Stone

Ancient South Arabian Alabaster Statue
Located in London, GB
South Arabian Calcite female figure 3rd Century BC to 1st century A.D. Calcite Alabaster height: 30.5 cm A magnificent alabaster female figure, a f...
Category

Antique 15th Century and Earlier Yemeni Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Alabaster

More About ArtAncient