Object details
Object number
S15w7.a-b
Creator(s)
Egyptian
Title
Canopic Jar
Date
1570 BCE - 1085 BCE
Medium
Alabaster
Dimensions
35 cm (13 3/4 in.)
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner in Cairo for $325 in November 1913, through the painter Joseph Lindon Smith (1863-1950).
Commentary
Canopic jars preserved the internal organs of the deceased in ancient Egypt. Embalming the dead was an important part of Egyptian death rituals and ensured passage of the spirit into the afterlife. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s friend Joseph Lindon Smith, an artist who documented murals excavated at archaeological sites in Egypt for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, helped her to acquire this jar in 1913.
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 101. (Egyptian, Middle Kingdom or 18th Dynasty; cover is likely not original)
Betty Chamberlain. “Italian Rooms” in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 9.
Clara Strauss. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 9, no. 32 (10 Apr. 1966), p. 2. (Egyptian, Middle Kingdom or 18th Dynasty)
Cornelius C. Vermeule III et al. Sculpture in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1977), p. 1, no. 1. (Egyptian, New Kingdom or later, 1570-1085 BCE)
Gallery
Early Italian Room
Rights and reproductions
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