Spouted Bowl (c. 2573–2454 BCE): Art, History and Details

Spouted Bowl (c. 2573–2454 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Both ancient Egyptian men and women loved cosmetics. Unguents, oils, and perfumes made from aromatic plant resins and gums were obtained at great cost from distant lands. The objects identified with cosmetics were given lavish treatment. The luxurious obsidian and gold beaker hints at the precious contents it once held. Others are fanciful in form, such as an ostrich egg. The god Bes, patron god of cosmetics, himself is the subject of a colorful jar. The delicately carved human face and the head of a giraffe decorated elaborate ivory cosmetic spoons.

Object facts

• Title: Spouted Bowl
• Date: c. 2573–2454 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Old Kingdom (2647–2124 BCE), Dynasty 4
• Type: Vessels
• Technique: anorthosite gneiss
• Dimensions: Diameter: 10.8 cm (4 1/4 in.); Diameter of mouth: 9.1 cm (3 9/16 in.); Overall: 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Old Kingdom
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1985.108

Collection credit

Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr. and various donors by exchange

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kozloff, Arielle P. “Egyptian Stone Vessels in Cleveland.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 8 (October 1986): 327–339.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.
• 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.