Ancient Egyptian husband and wife to be re-united

Two fragments of an ancient Egyptian pair statue are set to be reunited at the Hixenbaugh Ancient Art exhibition in the 10th annual Brussels Ancient Art Fair this June.

After thousands of years of separation, it appears that the husband and wife depicted in an ancient Egyptian pair statue may be reunited at last.

Thanks to the skillful eye of an Egyptologist, who recognized similarities between our fragment and a fragment in a European museum collection, the couple may once again be joined together. The possible reunion is set to take place at the 10th annual Brussels Ancient Art Fair in June at the Hixenbaugh Ancient Art exhibition.

The Hixenbaugh Ancient Art fragment is of a seated female figure wearing a high-waisted dress and a tri-partite wig, her left arm is extended to embrace her husband. The statue dates to either the New Kingdom or the Third Intermediate Period(ca. 1550 – 702 BC).

The statue was intentionally defaced in antiquity - the pair separated and the woman’s face obliterated. The fragment was formerly in the collection of Leighton Wilkie (1900-1993, a prolific collector of early technological artifacts). He acquired the piece from a Cairo antiquities dealer in 1970 and received export clearance from the Egyptian government. 

In Egypt, the pair statue or dyad was carved to show a physical and spiritual bond between husband and wife. Separating the two and defacing the woman was a deliberate act. Could it have been the work of a jealous lover? Did the woman die before her husband and was she separated and defaced by a second wife? Was it the act of an ungrateful child? Or was it simple vandalism? No one can know for certain what forces tore these two lovers apart, we can only speculate. Hopefully when the two fragments sit side by side, a positive match will be confirmed and the two can be reunited for all eternity as they had intended.

This statue fragment, as well as over 100 other ancient objects, will be on display from June 6th through June 10th at the Hixenbaugh Ancient Art exhibition of the Brussels Ancient Art Fair which will be located at Costermans-Antiques, Place du Grand Sablon 5.

Hixenbaugh Ancient Art Ltd, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is dedicated to handling fine authentic antiquities (Greek, Roman, Near Eastern and Egyptian Art).