Late Period, 664-332 B.C. A well-proportioned bronze cat head modelled in the round with stylised features and recessed eyes, possibly for inlays, hollow-formed; apanied by a custom-made display base. Cf. The Metropolitan Museum, accession number 56.16.1, for aparable, albeit decorated, cat head; cf. The British Museum, museum number EA11556, for a similar style of head; Roeder, G., Ägyptische Bronzewerke, Berlin 1956, pp. 344-346. 241 grams, 68 mm (862 grams total, 12 cm high including stand) (2 5/8 in. (4 3/4 in.)). Ex private French collection, 1970s. Ex Patrick Declerck, Auction, Douai, France, sale no.775, 16 February 2014, lot 22. Apanied by a copy of a French cultural passport no.158919. Apanied by an academic report by Egyptologist Paul Whelan. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is apanied by AIAD certificate no.11290-189882. The cat was sacred to the goddess Bastet, who enjoyed great status in the Late Period and Ptolemaic-Roman times and was worped in many parts of Egypt. Statuettes of the goddess depict her as a cat-headed woman wearing a long, tight-fitting dress. Her main cult centre was at Bubastis in the eastern Delta, where investigations in the 19th century revealed heaps of cat bones mixed with copper-alloy cat statuettes and heads. Many hundreds have also been recovered from the area of her temple, the Bubasteion, at Saqqara. For this specific lot, 5% import VAT is applicable on the hammer price [A video of this lot is available to view on Timeline Auctions .]