A remarkable rediscovery has been unveiled by leading London antiquities dealership David Aaron Ltd at this year’s Frieze Masters exhibition. The exhibition, titled A Goddess Rediscovered, features a masterfully carved Egyptian statue that has been long overlooked and misattributed. The exhibition will take place at The Regent’s Park in London from 15–19 October.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is a powerful and enigmatic bust of a Goddess by the Greywacke Master, dating back to the reign of Amasis II (570–526 B.C.) during Dynasty XXVI. The piece, carved from a fine dark stone called metagreywacke, has emerged after decades of obscurity to reclaim its place as one of the finest Egyptian sculptures of its kind in private hands today.
For over 40 years, this striking head, featuring serene features and a striated wig, lay hidden from public view in a private collection. When it resurfaced at an auction in Gloucestershire in 2022, its odd shiny surface and unusually preserved nose led some to dismiss it as a later imitation. The earliest known provenance at this time was its appearance in a 1978 Christie’s sale (Fine Antiquities, Christie’s, London, 14th June 1978, Lot 387).
However, through a forensic investigation by the team at David Aaron Ltd, together with scientists, conservators, and Egyptologists, the sculpture’s story was rewritten. It was discovered that the piece had been sold at a Hôtel Drouot sale in Paris in 1923, with the head photographed in the sales catalogue. Advanced material analysis, including optical petrography, SEM imaging, and X-ray spectrometry, confirmed the stone as Egyptian metagreywacke, highly prized during the Late Period for sculptures of royal and divine figures.
A meticulous study of toolmarks revealed how a section from the back of the original statue was reworked into a replacement nose during the 18th century, the original having been lost in antiquity. This restoration, although technically impressive, is now vastly outdated and would never happen in today’s restoration workshops, resulting in doubts being cast on the sculpture’s authenticity for a generation.
According to Salomon Aaron, Director of David Aaron Ltd, “It is a sculpture that has many stories, one of which is of ancient Egypt when master sculptors produced perfected forms of divinity and royalty. Then came the resulting iconoclasm from the end of the dynasty and a turbulent change of power. Later, the Italian restoration workshops of the 18th century. Lastly, of the early modern art market where the desire to ‘perfect’ antiquities often led to dramatic interventions, in this case, a dark grey overpainting. Now, by removing those additions, we can see the original goddess and Egyptian masterpiece emerge once again.”
The goddess figure, once hidden under wax, pigment, and speculation, has now been professionally de-restored, with the 18th-century nose sympathetically reattached. Recent scholarship has even linked the bust to a known corpus of works attributed to an ancient Egyptian workshop or artist known as the “Greywacke Master”.
A Goddess Rediscovered will be the highlight of the David Aaron stand at Frieze Masters 2025, stand C02, inviting curators, collectors, and scholars alike to engage with an object that bridges thousands of years of artistic tradition, restoration history, and connoisseurship.
For further information or to schedule an interview, please contact Salomon Aaron at sa@davidaaron.com or visit www.davidaaron.com. Images and a full dossier are available upon request.
Press release distributed by https://pressat.co.uk/
Derick is an experienced reporter having held multiple senior roles for large publishers across Europe. Specialist subjects include small business and financial emerging markets.