Ancient Egyptian Limestone Relief with Hieroglyphs

This painted limestone relief is an exquisite example of New Kingdom relief carving from the apogee of Egyptian artistic production. Carved in raised relief - a labour-intensive tech...

A magnificent example of a gogotte formation composed of thick swirls and folds of sparkling sandstone. Discovered in the Oligocene sand dunes of Fontainebleau, France, formed circa 30 million years before present or later. The incredible, almost otherworldly appearance of gogottes may easily be mistaken for the work of a most talented artist. In fact, these sandstone sculptures are entirely natural in origin. They have been found in multiple locations but those from Fontainebleau, such as the present example, are the most remarkable. Thirty-five million years ago, a sea covered what is now the forest of Fontainebleau, and dunes of exceptionally fine and homogenous sand formed. As silica-rich water filtered through this sand, it turned into stone. The flow of water finely modelled the sandstone into the aesthetic concretions we now know as gogottes. These are rare and are only found sporadically several metres deep into the ground. They owe their sparkling white appearance to the extreme and unmatched purity of the Fontainebleau sand, sometimes reaching a composition of 99.9% silica. Each of them is unique – a masterpiece slowly fashioned by the hands of Nature. The intriguing name of “gogotte” was coined by French geologist Claude Guillemin (1923- 1994), who was inspired by the children’s book series Babar the Elephant. In one of the books, a group of monsters called Gogottes are shown hiding behind rocks. These rocks reminded Guillemin of the sandstone concretions...

A Fine and Large Egyptian Limestone Relief Carved in Shallow Relief Traces of original polychrome Old Kingdom / 5th Dynasty / 2454 - 2311 B.C Size: 32cm high, 70cm wide, 5cm deep - 12½ ins high, 27½ ins wide, 2 ins deep Provenance: Ex Private Swiss collection, acquired mid 1960s and thence by descent Ex Rupert Wace Limited London Ex Private London collection cf A...

Neo-Egyptian sculpture in stone and cement, this sculpture was a previous building façade in Barcelona, from the 19th century. Neo-Egyptian Architecture, also called Egyptian Revi...