A reproduction Shabti and coffin case, late 19th to early 20th century
A miniature wooden coffin containing a wooden shabti, style of New Kingdom, Ramesside Period, 1292-1189 BC
21cm (shabti 18cm)

The collection of Dr and Mrs Rowland Campion, thence by descent.

Exhib. The Australian Institute of Archaeology, 1972

The coffin depicts the deceased in mummiform shape, wearing a tripartite wig and a large floral collar to the chest; the arms are crossed at the chest with clenched fists. To the body of the coffin is a vertical band of hieroglyphs naming the deceased. To the inside is a wooden shabti figure, again in mummiform shape and wearing a tripartite wig. The face is coloured with thick blue paint denoting the resurrected god Osiris. To the chest is a large floral collar and the arms are crossed with clenched fists resting on the chest. A vertical panel of hieroglyphs names the deceased. Across the whole body is a net pattern, representing the beaded covers on actual mummies.

For a similar example see: the shabti coffin of Sennedjem in the Pushkin State Museum for Art, accession no. I.1.a 1662

Rowland Burnell Maule Campion was born in 1888 in Queensland, Australia, the eldest of seven children, five brothers and two sisters. The family moved to the United Kingdom in 1907 following his father’s posting as manager of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in London. Here Rowland continued his education, specialising in dentistry, and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War. He served at the rank of Captain in France and Egypt, the latter where he met fellow Australian Kathleen Shelly and they married in Alexandria in 1916. They shared a passion for biblical history which would remain with them throughout their lives. They remained in Egypt following the war, returning to England briefly during the 1920s, but Alexandria had become their adopted home and so there they remained even as the second World War began.

Rowland joined the RAMC once again, serving in Egypt as Lieutenant, where he developed ground-breaking dental surgery techniques, including the use of rib bones to graft and re-build shattered mandibles in the victims of shrapnel wounds. While living and working in the Middle East, the Campions formed strong relationships with archaeologists and Egyptologists, including Sir Flinders Petrie. They were present at a number of significant digs and so began to build a collection of artefacts and finds of their own.

After the war, Rowland and Kathleen settled for a time in Cyprus where Kathleen’s father, Edgar Shelley, had his summer residence in the Troodos mountains, and where their daughter Joan and her husband Robert had also settled. Their house and grounds, close to the ancient ruins at Salamis, included an orange grove from which a number of Levantine antiquities were unearthed, further enlarging their collection.

In 1963 they returned to Australia, living first in Sydney and then later Brisbane and their love of antiquities continued, becoming friends of the Australian Archaeological Institute, forming close ties with like-minded enthusiasts. Following Rowland’s death in 1971, Kathleen gifted a number of items from their collection to that of the Archaeological institute. Ten years later Kathleen herself died and the collection then passed to their daughter Joan who brought it with her to the United Kingdom where it remained in her family. Joan had married Dr Robert Porter and for a time had settled in North Wales. Upon Joan’s death in 2003, the collection passed to her son and daughter-in-law in Bangor, Gwynedd.

The present lot is not of antiquity and it is unclear from family history whether it was believed to be so by the Campions or if they were aware of its vintage and acquired it as an interesting curiosity.

Condition Report

Wear and flaking to paint throughout. Some small chips. Some natural wood splits. Please refer to images.

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