Cosmetic Spoon in the Form of a Swimming Girl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Made of faience with bright turquoise glaze, this cosmetic container has a handle in the form of a naked girl holding a rectangular basin in her outstretched arms. Naked except for her black wig, the girl is thought, based on two-dimensional representations that show such figures in a marshy setting, to be swimming. In other examples, the girl can hold a waterfowl, a marsh plant, or a cartouche, and such spoons have been interpreted as ritual objects that can be read as rebuses associated with goddesses such as Nut and Hathor.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art