Artwork Page for Decorative Plaque: Browsing Stag

Details / Information for Decorative Plaque: Browsing Stag

Decorative Plaque: Browsing Stag

900–800 BCE

Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud

Medium
ivory
Measurements
Overall: 4.5 x 8.9 cm (1 3/4 x 3 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1968.49
Public Domain
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Location
102A Ancient Near East
Print

Description

This small plaque was executed in the Phoenician style with symmetrical compositions, elongated figural proportions, and Egyptian subjects and motifs. Examples have been found throughout the Middle East, but thousands come from Nimrud where most were excavated in the storerooms of a military arsenal built by King Shalmaneser II (858-824 bc). When the Nimrud palace was sacked in the 7th century bc, these ivories were thrown into a well, where Sir Max Mallowan (the husband of Agatha Christie) discovered them in 1951. The monumental wall relief (1943.246) was found at the same Assyrian palace at Nimrud.
A decorative plaque depicts a stag carved from creamy white ivory, its surface pitted and cracked. In profile facing our left, the stag's head is lowered toward a coiled plant. Vertical incised lines texture its neck, and two ribbed leaves grow between its legs. Standing on a thin rectangular base, the piece is fragmented along the top and right edges.

Decorative Plaque: Browsing Stag

900–800 BCE

Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud

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