*AN EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE PORTRAIT HEAD OF PTOLEMY II. Reign of PtolemyII, 286-246 BCE H. 19,7 cm Provenance Rustafjael Collection (1876-1943). Sotheby's, London, 20 January 1913, lot 242. Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959). Signor Carlo Monzino; Sotheby's, London, 10 July 1979, lot 100. Ex Christie's NY, 4/06/2008, lot 51 Estate of a European Ancient Dealer, acquired from above Then by descent Published in The Epstein Collection of Tribal and Exotic Sculpture, Arts Council of Great Britain Hondon 1960 no 297 The oval face with youthful idealizing features including fleshy lips drawn into a smile, a pointed chin and softly-modelled brows, the narrow almond-shaped eyes convex, with sharply-outlined lids, wearing an unstriated nemes-headcloth fronted by a uraeus, preserving traces of grid-lines at the back. The facial features—such as the almond-shaped eyes with slightly downturned tear ducts, the straight brows that curve downward at the ends, and the shape of the ears—closely resemble several known portraits of Ptolemy II. Comparable examples include: an alabaster portrait in the British Museum (no. 5 in Walker and Higgs, Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth); a life-sized granodiorite statue in the Vatican Museums (fig. 20 in Bianchi et al., Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies); a bronze bust in Cairo (no. 7, p. 159 in Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek Kings as Egyptian Pharaohs); and a limestone head in Paris (no. 126 in Grimes et al., La Gloire d’Alexandrie). Noteworthy also is the positioning of the uraeus, which partially overlaps the browband, along with the symmetrical rendering of the uraeus coils. Incised grid marks on the left rear side of the nemes headdress suggest that this head may have functioned as a sculptor’s model. However, it is unusual for such models to be finished in the round. For Swiss buyers, VAT applies to the hammer price and buyer's premium (only for the lots with the * mention)