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15 Branch offices & representatives Specialists KOLLER ZURICH Hardturmstrasse 102 8031 Zurich Switzerland T +41 44 445 63 63 office@kollerauctions.com DÜSSELDORF Ulrike Gruben Citadellstrasse 4 40213 Düsseldorf Germany T +49 211 30 14 36 38 M +49 175 586 38 64 duesseldorf@kollerauctions.com KOLLER GENEVA Rue de l’Athénée 2 1205 Geneva Switzerland T +41 22 311 03 85 geneva@kollerauctions.com MUNICH Fiona Seidler Vilshofener Str. 8 / corner Mauerkircherstr. 81679 Munich Germany T +49 89 22 802 766 M +49 177 257 63 98 muenchen@kollerauctions.com ITALY Lapo Baccarelli Via dei Fossi 15 50123 Florence, Italy T +39 366 994 16 36 italia@kollerauctions.com BEIJING Jing Li Chedaogou 10# 6/4-307 Haidian Qu 100089 Beijing China T +86 135 2039 8057 beijing@kollerauctions.com SWISS ART Cyril Koller & Laura Koller lkoller@kollerauctions.com IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART Cyril Koller & Jara Koller jara.koller@kollerauctions.com POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY PRINTS & MULTIPLES Silke Stahlschmidt stahlschmidt@kollerauctions.com ESTATES AND COLLECTIONS Stephan Koller skoller@kollerauctions.com FINE FURNITURE Stephan Koller skoller@kollerauctions.com OUT OF THIS WORLD Christian Link link@kollerauctions.com ASIAN ART Regi Preiswerk asianart@kollerauctions.com OLD MASTER & 19 TH CENTURY PAINTINGS Karoline Weser weser@kollerauctions.com OLD MASTER PRINTS & DRAWINGS Franz-Carl Diegelmann diegelmann@kollerauctions.com EUROPEAN PORCELAIN Sabine Neumaier neumaier@kollerauctions.com SILVER Corinne Koller ckoller@kollerauctions.com DESIGN Cyril Himmer himmer@kollerauctions.com VINTAGE FASHION Jara Koller jara.koller@kollerauctions.com BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS & AUTOGRAPHS Dr. Andreas Terwey terwey@kollerauctions.com ART DECO, ART NOUVEAU & CARPETS Jean-Pierre Dalla Vedova dallavedova@kollerauctions.com JEWELLERY Reto Schmidlin schmidlin@kollerauctions.com WATCHES Uwe Vischer vischer@kollerauctions.com WINE Koller Geneva geneva@kollerauctions.com Preview of the Decorative Arts auction on 21 September 2023 Cult of the dead in ancient Egy pt The oldest panel paintings in the history of art come from Egypt. Protected by the desert sands, they have withstood almost two millennia. Of the nearly 1 000 wooden panels that have been recovered worldwide, most are expressive portraits that record the deceased for eternity. At the same time, these important pictorial testimonies document the gradual replacement of Egyp- tian art and culture by that of the Romans in the early Christian era. Unlike traditional ancient Egyptian death masks, which showed abstracted and idealised representations of the dead, the wood-panel mummy portraits are naturalistic and individually executed. The portraits, usually painted as frontal views, were bound over the faces of the embalmed and wrapped bodies so that their countenance would remain present beyond death. One may assume that the ability to have such portraits made presupposed a certain wealth and elevated social status. Italian explorers discovered the first mummy portraits as early as 1615. The panel presented here was excavated by the English Egyptologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1888 in Hawara, in the oasis of Fayum, west of the lower reaches of the Nile. This area was under Roman rule from 30 BCE and is considered one of the most important sites for mummy portraits. Our example, mentioned in numerous scientific publications over the past 150 years, was found together with a second portrait, which is now in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. An Egyptian mummy portrait of a distinguished lady. Hawara, Trajanic period, early 2 nd c. BCE. Painted wood panel. 38 × 23.5 cm. Estimate: CHF 20 000/30 000