Tomb TT 1, Deir el-Medina, Western Thebes, Egypt

Highly Decorated Polychrome Pottery Vessel with Floral Collar and Pendant Lotus from the Tomb of Sennedjem

2087

New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, Ramesside Period, c. 1295–1189 BCE

A highly decorated polychrome pottery vessel from the tomb of Sennedjem (TT 1) at Deir el-Medina, Western Thebes, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, produced during the 19th Dynasty (c. 1295–1189 BCE). The vessel is organized into distinct decorative registers: a flat horizontal lip, a heavily banded cylindrical neck with framed amuletic panels and alternating triangular petal arrays in dark and light, a grand multi-tiered semicircular wesekh floral collar in blue, red, and white entirely covering the shoulder, and a suspended open lotus flower flanked by stylized buds hanging from the collar center down the body. The entire decorative program is executed in fine-brush polychrome painting over a cream slip ground, with crisp black outlines defining every petal, panel, and color boundary. Under directional light, the bold graphic rhythm of the closely packed decorative zones and the vivid polychrome palette produce an intensely animated surface.