Lion furniture leg

Lion furniture leg

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Made in fine, dense faience, the frontal part of a lion was made to slot onto another piece of furniture probably of wood. Furniture legs formed from the body and head of a lion conveyed an exalted status in Egyptian tradition. Here the fragile material and form indicate the piece may have adorned a low funerary bed on which the coffin or mummy of a deceased rested, or perhaps a stool intended to hold funerary items in the tomb.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.