Jul 20

This exquisite piece of the Palmyran Funerary Plaque of a Woman with her Mother comes from the first half of the 2nd century A.D.
This well preserved slab includes the bust of an adult woman who is richly clothed and accompanied by a second woman with a bare torso.  Their faces, as is typical with Palmyran sculptures, don’t display personal character and suggest a vaguely young age.  The woman on the right of the plaque, clearly the deceased, is the matron. This was the woman’s role within the house. She is ornately dressed and adorned in jewels.
The figure on the left is clearly a family member accompanying the deceased. This was very common on Palmyran funerary plaques.
As Phoenix Ancient Art explains, “Stylistically, this plaque can be attributed to the final phases of the first group of Palmyran sculpture and dates to the first half of the 2nd century A.D.; the type of earrings, the schematic folds of the fabric, the shape of the eyes (two concentric circles for the iris and the pupil) confirm this dating.”
Jul 10

Ali Aboutaam sells art from various historical periods including the Archaic and Classical Greek era which started in 800 BCE and lasted until 480 BCE.  In terms of art, it is somewhere between Geometric Art and Classical Greek art.  It is known as archaic because it “contained the seeds of classical art” and came after the Greek Dark Ages.  In terms of politics and culture, this time frame was famous for growth in political theory as well as the start of classical poetry, philosophy, theater and written language.
One such product currently on sale is a very colorful and attractive bottle that probably at one time held some kind of perfumed oil.  Known as an amphoriskos (lit. miniature amphora) its ovoid shape is made from a glass of deep cobalt-blue hue, with a pointed bottom, circular shoulders, cylindrical neck and inward sloping disk rim.  It has opaque yellow glass threading around it from the top, as well as opaque turquoise glass around its widest part.  The handles are made from translucent blue glass.

Jul 3

If you’re looking for a unique antique, Phoenix Ancient Art with Hicham Aboutaam and Ali Aboutaam is certainly the place to look.  One of their most recent additions is the Greek Head of a goddess from the Greek World in the Late 5th century B.C.  This head is complete and is carved from a block of fine-grained white marble.  The nose was added in plaster and the upper skull was completed with other materials.

The indications of the diadem or crown with or without a veil or helmet indicate that this figure wasn’t a mortal.  The mythological figure could have been Hera, Demeter, Persephone, Aphrodite or Artemis.  It may even have been Athena, if the head were protected by a helmet.

The style of the statue certainly fixes the date to the Classical period, between the last decades of the 5th or the early 4th century B.C.  During this period, the Greek world was shaken by the fratricidal Peloponnesian War.