Female Offering Bearer (2000–1801 BCE): Art, History and Details

Female Offering Bearer (2000–1801 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The offering bearer wears a basic wraparound kalasiris dress and a strap that connects to the dress over her left shoulder. It is not known whether straps on ancient Egyptian dresses were designed as a part of the garment or were separate attachments for fashionable or utilitarian purposes. Ancient Egyptian illustrations typically identify women who wore this garment with a strap as servants, whereas artisans depicted men of all socioeconomic levels wearing the version for men.

Object facts

• Title: Female Offering Bearer
• Date: 2000–1801 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Middle Kingdom (2040–1648 BCE), Dynasties 11–12
• Type: Wood
• Technique: painted wood, figure of tamarisk(?), base of sycamore fig
• Dimensions: Overall: 25.8 x 7.9 x 12.2 cm (10 3/16 x 3 1/8 x 4 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Middle Kingdom
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1914.602

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.