About the lot N° 201
Title : Mesopotamian Alabaster Bull Head Attachment
Size : 2 in. (5 cm.) highNotes : Afternoon sessionWednesday 20 April 2005 at 2.30 pmOrder of saleThe Leo Mildenberg Collection of Ancient Animals lots 201-265Near Eastern lots 201-220Egyptian lots 221-228Mediterranean World lots 229-265Jewellery lots 266-277Books includingThe Library of the late Prof. Dr. J. Settgast lots 278-310Mediterranean World lots 311-349Books includingThe Library of the late Prof. Dr. J. Settgast lots 350-379Egyptian and Coptic lots 380-407THE LEO MILDENBERG COLLECTION OF ANCIENT ANIMALSBy 1948, when German-born Leo Mildenberg was liberated from a wartime Siberian gulag, he had seen the best and the worst of human nature. What he learned, lived through and observed during the war, he took with him to a new life in Zurich, where he found work as a classical numismatist working for Bank Leu.Family legend has it that he spotted a mistake on a coin label in the bank's Bahnhofstrasse window, reported it to the person in charge and was immediately hired in the gold department, of which coins were a part. It was not long before he was given complete charge of his own separate numismatics department. Over three decades both his expertise and the renown of his department rose to the highest international level. His mentor was the legendary antiquities dealer Jacob Hirsch, and he was befriended by the great Swiss numismatist and antiquities dealer Herbert Cahn. In turn, he befriended collectors, curators and dealers in Europe and America, while helping them build their own collections and knowledge.At the same time Leo himself began to collect ancient art - Egyptian, Classical and Near Eastern. He limited himself to figures of animals. He had seen enough of man's inhumanity to man, and he knew that the ancient artists often expressed emotion, spirit, joie de vivre and tragedy much more freely in animal representations than they did in humans.His would be a 'peaceable kingdom' - one in which no animal met harm. They are all free, carefree and unfettered. Though he himself was like the phoenix rising from the ashes of a destroyed life, Leo collected no fantasy animals, no monsters, only real animals - peaceful animals - whose spirits shone through their eyes. It speaks to me!, he would delightedly exclaim as he added each creature to his zoo.With an eye honed on the most exquisite details of the finest Greek coins, Leo had a knack for choosing works of beautiful craftsmanship and superb quality. The adjectives fitting some of Leo's animals - the frisky horses, skittish birds, masterful lions, dashing antelopes - all applied to Leo himself. Each animal spoke to Leo and, since his demise in January 2001, they speak for him, each in its own quiet way, with the look in its eye and the grace of its figure.Arielle P. KozloffCleveland, OhioSELECT BIBLIOGRAPHYA. P. Kozloff (ed.), Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Part I, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1981.A. P. Kozloff, Perry Grin's Travels, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1981 (a children's story book).U. Gehrig (ed.), Tierbilder aus vier Jahrtausenden, Antiken der Sammlung Mildenberg, Mainz am Rhein, 1983.A. P. Kozloff, D. G. Mitten and M. Sguaitamatti, More Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Part II, Mainz am Rhein, 1986.A. S. Walker (ed.), Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Part III, Mainz am Rhein, 1996.G. Zahlhaas, Aus Noahs Arche, Tierbilder der Sammlung Mildenberg aus fünf Jahrtausenden, Part IV, Mainz am Rhein, 1996.P. E. Mottahedeh (ed.), Out of Noah's Ark, Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem, 1997.J. Biers (ed.), A Peaceable Kingdom, Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Part VI, Mainz am Rhein, 2004.Christie's London, A Peaceable Kingdom: The Leo Mildenberg Collection of Ancient Animals, 26-27 October 2004, lots 1-419, and Christie's New York, Antiquities, 10 December 2004, lots 1-41, 301-338.THE LEO MILDENBERG MEMORIAL NUMISMATIC LECTUREThese lectures are held annually to commemorate Dr. Mildenberg's long connection with Harvard University, to which he came nearly every year to deliver a lecture on some major numismatic subject that he was researching. This year's lecture, the third, will take place on Friday, 15 April 2005, in the Sackler Museum Auditorium at 6.00 pm. The lecture will be on the silver shekels of Tyre, given by Brooks Emmons Levy, curator emerita of the numismatic collections in the Princeton University Library. The public is warmly invited to attend.THE LEO MILDENBERG COLLECTION OF ANCIENT ANIMALS(lots 201-265)NEAR EASTERNPUBLISHED:Animals, 2004, VI, no. 7.VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.Christie's, auctioneer, London, UK
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Sale title : Antiquities
Sale date : 20 Apr 2005
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Sale Reference : Live Sale
