Oinochoe Fragment with Queen Arsinoe III (?)

The queen’s body is depicted in mixed perspective, with her torso frontal and her head turned to her left to look at the long, slim cornucopia she holds in her left arm. Her right arm, missing from the elbow, would have been raised up to hold a scepter or staff. A mantle is draped over her left shoulder and wrapped around her lower body, partially covering her sleeveless chiton. Brown pigment colors the queen’s wavy hair, arranged in the melon hairstyle, around which she wears a diadem.
Based on complete examples of the oinochoe type, the queen would likely have been depicted participating in an offering scene, and an altar and a tapering column were probably also part of the composition. Egyptian faience jugs or wine pitchers (oinochoai) of this kind were used in the cult of the Ptolemaic rulers and always depict one of the queens of the early Ptolemaic period in high relief. This queen has been identified as possibly Arsinoe III (died 204 BCE), wife of Ptolemy IV Philopator.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Dikran Kelekian, Paris and New York, [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [said to be from Lower Egypt]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, by 1915; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.