A Luristan Bronze Openwork Pinhead, ca. early first millennium BCE
A Luristan Bronze Openwork Pinhead, ca. early first millennium BCE
A Luristan Bronze Openwork Pinhead, ca. early first millennium BCE
A Luristan Bronze Openwork Pinhead, ca. early first millennium BCE

A Luristan Bronze Openwork Pinhead, ca. early first millennium BCE

MB2001

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This openwork pin, cast from the lost-wax process, depicts a master of animals figure wearing a headdress and ribbed collar with arms raised, flanked by two inverted lions, framed in a crescent emerging from a lion mask at the base of the figure and terminating in a pair of caprid heads with ribbed collars.

Pins of this form were the most popular votive pins in Luristan. The diety shown on them all in the role of "master/mistress of animals" was of considerable eminence and power in the local pantheon. The central figure on these pinheads occasionally has a lion mask in place of a semi-human face or two such lion heads set side by side in profile, or they may assume the head and horns of a mouflon. As these pins were all cast using the lost-wax process, and therefore all individually modeled, no two examples are exactly alike. There is a large variety in the details, but all are related by the iconography of a mistress or master of animals framed by a crescent or square.

Ref: PRS Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: The Clareon Press (1971), p. 205.

PRS Moorey, Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Adams Collection, London: Faber and Faber (1974), pp. 123-124.

Houshang Mahboubian, Art of Ancient Iran: Copper and Bronze, London: Philip Wilson (1997), pp. 191, 193.

Dimensions: Height: 5.5 inches (14 cm), Width: 3.5 inches (8.9 cm)

Condition: Intact and in excellent condition overall.  On museum quality custom mount.

Provenance: From an important and internationally renowned single owner collection, assembled in the 1960s, with original inventory number: UA1091, thereafter private Virginia collection, acquired from the trade in 2011.

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Furthermore, we conduct due diligence to ensure the item, to the best of our knowledge, has not been illegally obtained from an excavation, architectural monument, public institution, or private property. Wherever possible, reference is made to existing collections or publications.Wherever possible, reference is made to existing collections or publications.

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