Winged Pectoral Scarab (664–525 BCE): Art, History and Details

Winged Pectoral Scarab (664–525 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

To create connections between their work and ancient Egypt, European and American jewelers conducted careful research, looking at sources including hieroglyphs in funerary art and architecture. The1924 Cartier scarab brooch was directly inspired by representations of the dung beetle, which also stood for Khepri, a sun deity of resurrection, while the 1927 gateway brooch echoes the silhouette of ancient Egyptian temple entrances. Beauty companies like Bourjois even adopted ancient Egyptian motifs for their marketing and packaging, suggesting the elegance of their brand through sensationalized elements of ancient Egyptian art.

Object facts

• Title: Winged Pectoral Scarab
• Date: 664–525 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Late period (715–332 BCE), Dynasty 26
• Type: Scarabs
• Technique: deep turquoise faience
• Dimensions: Overall: 7 cm (2 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Late Period
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1914.766

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.