Bead or Amulet in the Shape of Two Birds
New Kingdom, mid–Dynasty 18–19, about 1390–1186 BCE
Ancient Egyptian
Glass; 1 × 2.4 × 2.3 cm (7/16 × 1 × 15/16 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1894.773
Depicted here is a charming pair of short-necked birds, probably ducks, made of blue glass covered with trails of yellow and white glass. The pair was formed around a wire and pinched into shape while still molten.[1] The different colors cleverly delineate the anatomy of the birds. The heads, chests, and backbones are detailed with yellow glass, the bodies are striped, and the wings are dark blue rimmed in white. The head of one bird is broken off at the neck; the other’s recurved neck is preserved, the bird’s head nestled on its chest.1
Additional Views of Cat. 65
Front of cat. 65.
Top of cat. 65.
Provenance
Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859–1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894.2
Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 125.
3
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 65 Bead or Amulet in the Shape of Two Birds,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593213/71.
© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
