Funerary relief of a breastfeeding woman from Palmyra, Roman time Syria, 200-275 CE
Auction: Bonhams 7 July 2022 https://www.bonhams.com
“Carved in high relief, the woman wearing a chiton held in place by a circular brooch at her proper left shoulder, her oval face with large lidded eyes and slightly parting lips, her hair swept-up, partially covering an elaborately decorated fillet, a veil covering the top of her head and falling across her shoulders, wearing pendant earrings, two necklaces, one beaded, the other with a central pendant, and a bracelet on her right wrist, her left wrist with a spiral bangle, a nude suckling infant cradled in her proper left arm with the child’s hand touching the mother’s exposed left breast, two lines of Aramaic above her proper right shoulder, 53cm high
Provenance:
Private collection, Yorkshire.
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, London, 26 November 1980, lot 86.
Private collection, UK.
Private collection, London.”