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EG 01          h. 27 cm

MES 01         h. 6 cm

The Gayer-Anderson cat (approx. 600 BC)

The Gayer-Anderson cat was named after the British officer and collector who donated this bronze sculpture to the British Museum in 1947.

The cat was probably found in Saqqara or Giza at one of the animal cemeteries and dates back to the 26^th Dynasty (664-525 BC).

The cat's forehead is adorned by a winged scarab, a manifestation of the god Khepri and a symbol of the morning sun and rebirth.

The necklace bears the silver Udjat amulet, also known as the eye of Horus, which consists of a human eye with an eyebrow and the feathers of a falcon. This eye constitutes a powerful religious symbol and occurs in various Egyptian myths. The principal of which relates how the god Horus’eye was torn out in a battle for the throne with his uncle Seth. The wise moon God Thot restored the eye, which became a symbol of healing power and happiness.

Under the eye of Horus, a winged scarab with falcon's wings has been engraved with above it a sun inlaid in silver.

The conspicuous gold nose and earrings originally occurred on many Egyptian cat statuettes, but they were only seldom found.

Eye Idol (Mesopotamia, ca. 3000 BC)

In 1937, English archaeologists discovered the remains of a remarkable temple near the city of Tell Brak in North-eastern Syria. The plasterwork proved to contain hundreds of alabaster idols. They all had angular, flat bodies and small heads with oversized eyes. They were called eye idols and the temple was nicknamed the eye temple.

During the fourth and third millennium BC, Tell Brak was one of the most important towns in Northern Mesopotamia (the land between the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris). The fortified town controlled the principal trading route through the Tigris Valley, along which metals from Anatolia to the north were brought in and through which the caravans travelled to and from the Mediterranean.

DAV 01        h 23 cm

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

 Leonardo da Vinci was the archetypal example of the Renaissance ideal: the uomo universale. As a Renaissance man he engaged in almost every art and science from painting to composition and from philosophy to chemistry.

Leonardo was born in the Tuscan mountain town of Vinci as the illegitimate son of a farm girl and a Florentine notary. He started as an apprentice to Verrocchio and rose to become an independent painter with his own studio. From 1482 – 1499, he worked for the Duke of Milan. Due to the French siege of Milan, he was forced to return to the region of his birth where he worked for Cesare Borgia as a military architect and engineer. For ten years, from 1506 onwards he worked in Milan and Rome. During the last three years of his life he was employed by the French King Francois I.

The Vitruvian Man (ca. 1490)

 Da Vinci tended to compensate for his lack of an education in the classical sense with an excess of empirical studies. The most famous of these is the Vitruvian Man so-called because it is based on a description of the ideal human proportions by Roman architect Vitruvius (around 85-20 BC).

The study illustrates the mingling of art and science during the Renaissance perfectly. Da Vinci viewed the human body as a reflection of the universe. He therefore referred to his anatomical studies as cosmografia del minor mondo. A popular, though unproven theory is that Da Vinci saw the circle as the domain of human emotion whereas the square symbolised matter.

JAP 01         h. 10 cm

ANA 01          h. 13 cm

Maneki Neko (Meiji Era, late 19^th century)

Japanese culture has a long tradition of creating engi mono, sculptures which bring luck to their owner. The most famous being the maneki neko or beckoning cat, which has been enticing customers at the entrances to shops and restaurants for centuries. The cat beckons the Japanese way by moving its fingers up and down, palm forward.

Several historic tales relate that an important person was saved from an ambush by a beckoning cat. The cats bring luck and wisdom.

During the Meiji Era (1868-1912) the beckoning cat became exceptionally popular due to the government's ban on sexually explicit talismans in an attempt to make society appear more Western. The maneki neko proved to be a charming alternative.

In Japan's complex system of beliefs and superstitions, the meaning of the raised left or right paw depends on the time and place. Customers are usually beckoned with the left paw and the raised right paw brings luck and prosperity. Sometimes the left paw is also reserved for drinking establishments because drinks have to be held in the left hand.

The collar is a stylised representation of the wreathes of red flowers the cats of rich families wore around their necks during the Edo period (1603-1868).

Two-headed idol (Anatolia, around 2000 BC)

This touching idol was found in Kültepe in central Anatolia, the enormous peninsular that constitutes the Asian part of Turkey.

At the close of the early Bronze Age, around 2000 BC, Anatolia became incredibly wealthy thanks to its strategic location between Asia and Europe. The majority of the population lived in fortified settlements. Large Assyrian trading caravans made up of hundreds of donkeys loaded with textiles and tin crossed the area. They paid tax to local princes in exchange for protection and the right to establish trading posts (karums).

Külptepe is famous as the site where the oldest Anatolian writings were found. The contracts, bills and stock lists on these clay tablets were written in an Assyrian dialect.

The two-headed idol dates back to the beginning of this prosperous period. It is very similar to the later, copper statuettes of the Hittites, who captured central Anatolia in the 19th-century BC.