21st Nov, 2025 13:00
Fine Antiquities & Ancient Art
61
† A RARE ALABASTER HEAD OF A WOMAN, ANCIENT KINGDOM OF SABA
€5,000
€10,000
A buyer’s premium of 30.00% (including VAT) applies to the hammer price of this lot if your bid is successful.
South Arabia, 1st century BC to 1st century AD. Expressively carved as a female head of a woman with a long and straight nose, prominent lips, a pointed chin, and large, almond-shaped eyes, beneath finely engraved eyebrows, and with the hair tied back behind the ears.
Provenance: A Swiss private collection, acquired before 1971, and thence by descent. Joseph Uzan, Galerie Samarcande, Paris, France, acquired from the above, together with a written declaration by the previous owner stating that “This object came from my father’s collection gathered before 1971”. A copy of this note addressed to Galerie Samarcande, dated 2 December 2011, accompanies this lot. Galerie Samarcande is a Paris-based antiquities gallery founded in 1973, specializing in archaeology, Asian art, and Islamic art. Since 2013, it has been managed by Sabrina Uzan, continuing the work of her father Joseph Uzan. The gallery is known for supplying pieces to major institutions such as the Louvre, the Musée Guimet, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Condition: Very good condition with old wear, commensurate with age. Smoothened chips, signs of weathering and erosion, and encrustations. The blue lapis-inlaid pupils are now lost. With a fine, naturally grown patina overall, rendering an unctuous feel and a lustrous, ivory-white surface.
Weight: 4,056 g (excl. stand), 4.225 g (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 18.5 cm (excl. stand), 21.5 cm (incl. stand)
With an associated wood stand. (2)
Alabaster heads of this type were often fitted with gypsum and set into a rectangular niche high on an inscribed limestone stela, oriented to confront the viewer directly. Examples display large, drilled eye sockets and brows prepared for inlay, features documented on South Arabian heads in the British Museum, where brows and pupils were once filled with glass or stone, and on related funerary stelae inscribed with the names of the deceased or their clan. Findspots and museum records place these works across the major kingdoms of ancient South Arabia, including Qataban (Bayḥān/Timnaʿ) and Saba (Maʿrib), indicating a broad regional use of such memorial monuments. A celebrated female head from the Timnaʿ cemetery (“Miriam”) further illustrates the type’s construction, plaster-added hair and eyes inlaid with lapis or blue glass, while confirming the funerary context. Comparable alabaster funerary figures and stelae in museum collections such as the British Museum reinforce their role as grave markers or components of tomb monuments across Yemen.
From the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD, the ancient kingdom of Saba sat astride the incense routes that moved frankincense and myrrh from South Arabia to the Mediterranean. Controlling caravan corridors via Ma’rib–Shabwah–Qanā (Bir ʿAli) and Red Sea outlets, Saba leveraged customs, diplomacy, and temple-sanctioned trade to supply Roman, Nabataean, and Egyptian markets at peak demand. The period also saw Saba navigating rising Himyarite power and Rome’s abortive Aelius Gallus expedition (26–24 BC), underscoring the region’s strategic value. In short, Saba’s command of aromatics made it a linchpin of late Hellenistic and early Roman commerce, with cultural and monetary ripples felt across the wider Mediterranean.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related alabaster head of a woman, dated to the 1st century BC-mid 1st century CE, 30.2 cm high, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number S2013.2.139. Compare two closely related alabaster heads, dated to the 3rd century BC-3rd century AD, 14 cm and 17 cm (high), in the British Museum, registration number 1995,0617.3 and 1985,0223.33.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 16 June 2006, lot 40
Price: USD 192,000 or approx. EUR 260,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A South Arabian alabaster head of a man, circa 1st century B.C.-1st century A.D.
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and expression, almond-shaped eyes. Note the different gender and slightly larger size (26.6 cm high).
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Bonhams London, 7 July 2016, lot 147
Price: GBP 122,500 or approx. EUR 217,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A South Arabian alabaster head of a woman
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and expression, almond-shaped eyes. Note the larger size (29.5 cm high).
South Arabia, 1st century BC to 1st century AD. Expressively carved as a female head of a woman with a long and straight nose, prominent lips, a pointed chin, and large, almond-shaped eyes, beneath finely engraved eyebrows, and with the hair tied back behind the ears.
Provenance: A Swiss private collection, acquired before 1971, and thence by descent. Joseph Uzan, Galerie Samarcande, Paris, France, acquired from the above, together with a written declaration by the previous owner stating that “This object came from my father’s collection gathered before 1971”. A copy of this note addressed to Galerie Samarcande, dated 2 December 2011, accompanies this lot. Galerie Samarcande is a Paris-based antiquities gallery founded in 1973, specializing in archaeology, Asian art, and Islamic art. Since 2013, it has been managed by Sabrina Uzan, continuing the work of her father Joseph Uzan. The gallery is known for supplying pieces to major institutions such as the Louvre, the Musée Guimet, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Condition: Very good condition with old wear, commensurate with age. Smoothened chips, signs of weathering and erosion, and encrustations. The blue lapis-inlaid pupils are now lost. With a fine, naturally grown patina overall, rendering an unctuous feel and a lustrous, ivory-white surface.
Weight: 4,056 g (excl. stand), 4.225 g (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 18.5 cm (excl. stand), 21.5 cm (incl. stand)
With an associated wood stand. (2)
Alabaster heads of this type were often fitted with gypsum and set into a rectangular niche high on an inscribed limestone stela, oriented to confront the viewer directly. Examples display large, drilled eye sockets and brows prepared for inlay, features documented on South Arabian heads in the British Museum, where brows and pupils were once filled with glass or stone, and on related funerary stelae inscribed with the names of the deceased or their clan. Findspots and museum records place these works across the major kingdoms of ancient South Arabia, including Qataban (Bayḥān/Timnaʿ) and Saba (Maʿrib), indicating a broad regional use of such memorial monuments. A celebrated female head from the Timnaʿ cemetery (“Miriam”) further illustrates the type’s construction, plaster-added hair and eyes inlaid with lapis or blue glass, while confirming the funerary context. Comparable alabaster funerary figures and stelae in museum collections such as the British Museum reinforce their role as grave markers or components of tomb monuments across Yemen.
From the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD, the ancient kingdom of Saba sat astride the incense routes that moved frankincense and myrrh from South Arabia to the Mediterranean. Controlling caravan corridors via Ma’rib–Shabwah–Qanā (Bir ʿAli) and Red Sea outlets, Saba leveraged customs, diplomacy, and temple-sanctioned trade to supply Roman, Nabataean, and Egyptian markets at peak demand. The period also saw Saba navigating rising Himyarite power and Rome’s abortive Aelius Gallus expedition (26–24 BC), underscoring the region’s strategic value. In short, Saba’s command of aromatics made it a linchpin of late Hellenistic and early Roman commerce, with cultural and monetary ripples felt across the wider Mediterranean.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related alabaster head of a woman, dated to the 1st century BC-mid 1st century CE, 30.2 cm high, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number S2013.2.139. Compare two closely related alabaster heads, dated to the 3rd century BC-3rd century AD, 14 cm and 17 cm (high), in the British Museum, registration number 1995,0617.3 and 1985,0223.33.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 16 June 2006, lot 40
Price: USD 192,000 or approx. EUR 260,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A South Arabian alabaster head of a man, circa 1st century B.C.-1st century A.D.
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and expression, almond-shaped eyes. Note the different gender and slightly larger size (26.6 cm high).
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Bonhams London, 7 July 2016, lot 147
Price: GBP 122,500 or approx. EUR 217,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A South Arabian alabaster head of a woman
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and expression, almond-shaped eyes. Note the larger size (29.5 cm high).
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Auction: Fine Antiquities & Ancient Art, 21st Nov, 2025
With our auction Fine Antiquities & Ancient Art on November 21, 2025, Galerie Zacke opens a new chapter.
After decades of specialization in the arts of Asia —from Japan, China, and Southeast Asia through Afghanistan and the Eurasian steppes to the Arabian Peninsula—we now take a step westward. This premiere is dedicated to the great cultures of antiquity: from the Levant and Egypt across the Mediterranean to Italy, the Balkans, and the Maghreb. A circle closes—along the ancient trade routes once traversed by conquerors from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan. Learn more.
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21 November
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