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Post by Tamrin on Jul 5, 2008 10:23:55 GMT 10
In a recent edition of BAR ( Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 34 No. 2, March/April 2008, pp.14/15) is a report of the 3 inch high Guennol Lioness (c.3000 - 2800 B.C.E.) having been sold for $57 million. A record for any sculpture at auction (the previous being $29 million for Picasso's, Tete de Femme). According to a tendentious site: The Guennol Lioness was found at a site in Kurdsán about 80 years ago and seems to be stolen by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley and bought in 1931 by Joseph Brummer, a New York art dealer. In 1948, he sold it to New Yorker Alastair Bradley Martin and his wife Edith. The couple - who have Welsh origins, called their estate Guennol - which is Welsh for Martin. For most of the time since the Martins bought the lioness, it has been on permanent loan to New York's Brooklyn Museum.
It was carved by a craftsman from Elam, the ancient Kurdsán. At Sotheby’s New York, the Guennol Lioness, sold for a remarkable $57.161.000, a record for any sculpture at auction.
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 5, 2008 10:28:01 GMT 10
Art for art's sake is arguably a modern phenomenon and the likely iconography of the piece is what fascinates me more than its sale price. Throughout much of the Fertile Crescent the names of the gods and goddesses varied but connections and even identities could be recognised through associations with various symbols. Thus, in Mesopotamia, the "Queen of Heaven," the mother goddess associated with fertility, the planet Venus, bees, trees, pillars, serpents, etc. was known as Innana (top left) or Ishtar (top right) and in Anatolia as Cybele (middle). One of her theophanies was the lion, as it was of the Hebrew goddess Asherah (bottom, as Kadesh). I suggest the exaggerated musculature of the Guennol Lioness might be viewed in this context.
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 5, 2008 12:09:36 GMT 10
A Compagnonnage T.B., featuring a chariot drawn by lions (part of Cybele's iconography)
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