Object details
Accession number
C11s15.1-2
Primary Creator
Egyptian
Full title
Pair of Bottles with Egyptian Sand
Creation Date
1875
Provenance
Acquired and assembled by Isabella Stewart Gardner on her trip to Egypt in 1875.
Dimensions
19.3 cm (7 5/8 in.)
Display Media
Engraved glass, sand, cork
Web Commentary
Sand collected in these bottles reminded Isabella Stewart Gardner of a profoundly moving experience in Egypt. Between 1874 and 1875, she travelled by boat along the Nile and recorded events from the trip in her travel journal. She describes lying alone in the sand near the Pyramids at Gizeh, where “the solemnity and mystery took possession and my heart went out to the Sphinx.”
Permanent Gallery Location
Macknight Room
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 65.Diana Seave Greenwald. "Creating Rapture: Assemblage & Museum Making" in Diana Seave Greenwald (ed.). Betye Saar: Heart of a Wonderer. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2023), p. 31, fig. 9.
Rights and reproductions
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