 Welcome and welcome to Barn's Takeout, your daily serving of art. My name is Carl Walsh. I'm a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Research, Interpretation and Education here at the Barns. And today I'm going to take you to Room 4 to have a look at one of the few Egyptian objects which are on the first floor of the collection. And you can find it hanging up here on the south wall ensemble of Room 4. It's nestled amongst all these religious paintings and pieces of stone relief sculpture and pieces of metalwork as well. And our little object seems to make a kind of mirrored counterpart to this kind of strange stone mask-like face, which we know very little about and have no idea where it's from or who made it. But it seems to have this interesting relationship with our Egyptian object in this ensemble through its material. So they're both made out of dark stone and through the technique that they were made. So they're both pretty kind of roughly carved and hewn from the stone. So they seem to kind of have this interesting relationship that Barns is highlighting through the ensemble here. But if we zoom in on our object that we're looking at today, you can see that indeed it's made out of this dark stone, which is probably steatite, which often goes by the name of soap stone. And through the name of soap stone, this stone is pretty easy to carve. I've actually had a go at doing this myself. And you can use pretty simple wooden metal or stone tools to carve this. You can even use kind of utensils around the house to carve this material as well. So it's pretty easy to work and to shape. And you can see that the object is carved into the form of a bound gazelle. So you can see some really nice details of things like the horns that kind of curve around onto the body. You have these nice legs which are bound with a coil of rope. And then kind of details of like fur and the eyes and the mouth here as well. And while these are kind of nice details that the artist has put time into expressing and showing, the style of the carving is still pretty rough. It's pretty crude in my opinion. So it's not the most well made object, but it definitely has some nice details to it. In addition to being a piece of decorative art, it's also a functional object. So this is a cosmetic dish, which are common objects in burials in the New Kingdom period. And they're often carved in the shape of animals. So we have things like gazelles as we see here. And we have ducks and fish and sometimes even things like hippos. And while this view that we're seeing here, it gives a nice view of this animal. This is actually the verso side of the object. So the actual kind of functional side is against the wall at the barns. And we don't actually have a very good photograph. Well, we don't have a photograph at all of this side of the object. And one of the first things that we're doing when I get back to the barns is actually to take this object into the lab and have a look at the other side to see what's going on and take some photography of the object to understand what is seen on this side. And although we don't have a photograph of the other side to show you, what we would expect is that the main body of the gazelle here on the other side will actually be hollowed out and to form a dish, an oval or circular depression. And inside of that would have been a little preparation area where you could mix and prepare cosmetics that you would then be applying to the body. So you have this kind of circular or oval shaped depression on the other side that would have fit into this body shape of the gazelle. And then often what we find with these types of dishes is that there is then a lid that is placed above it and you can usually pivot it on a small hinge that will slide over to give you access to the contents inside. And some of these are really nicely carved and made in other examples of these types of dishes. And the ones that are usually carved in the form of ducts actually have these lovely carved wings which sometimes kind of open like wings spreading to reveal the dish and the contents inside it as well. But unfortunately for our lovely little gazelle here we don't actually have any signs of a lid not even a kind of a hinge or a pivot point where it would have been attached. So unfortunately we don't have a lid to look at. But one of the things I'll be doing when I look at this object in the future is just try to see if there are any signs that might suggest that there was originally some kind of lid placed on it. And now the types of cosmetics which would have been mixed and kind of filled in the dish would have been things like scented oils and fats and pastes which would have been applied to the hair and to enter the body. And it could also be used for mixing and coloring pigments for eye makeup or for face makeup. And again one of the things that I'll be looking at when I research this object further is to work with our conservation team to see if we can find any traces or residues of cosmetic substances which were in the dish or for any signs of wear as things like grinding and kind of mixing marks that might be on the surface. So that would be something that we look at in the future. And it's also interesting to think about because this is one of the few Egyptian objects in the collection that may have been used in daily life. Most of the things that we have in the barns are religious objects that would have been in little shrines or temples or left as offerings or their pieces of kind of tomb architecture or temples or shrines. And this is one of the few that actually would have been something that maybe someone would use every day as part of their kind of grooming regime in the morning when they're preparing themselves for the day. So it's a really nice object to think about as being something personal that belonged to someone that would have been part of them at their daily grooming regime. And grooming is really important part of expressing social status and identity in Egyptian society. And these types of decorated cosmetic equipment would have been expressions of wealth and power. And when you look at Egyptian art you'll always notice that people are presented in this kind of idealized form. And part of that idealized form is paying a lot of attention to how people groom themselves. So the placing of eye makeup, the use of elaborate hairstyles and lots of attention to kind of how people are wearing jewelry and fine clothes. So being well groomed is a really important way of expressing your position in society. And it also allows you to kind of adhere to Egyptian beliefs and about cosmic order as well. There's this idealized and kind of flawless beauty that comes through through grooming and it expresses this triumph of order over chaos, which is something I very much relate to at the moment when I go through my daily kind of grooming regime of taming my hair and things as well. So it's the transformation of from the messy and unclean body to something that is beauty and perfection, which symbolizes that transformative power of kind of cosmic order over chaos. And actually the decoration and theme of this dish also relates to those concepts. You know, these take the form of gazelles and fish and ducks, which all represent, you know, the natural world and the natural order. But these forces still have to be controlled and tamed and restrained. And these are types of animals that are exploited as well. They're hunted for food. And they're also hunted for sport by elite and royalty. So the image here, you know, it seems like a very simple image, just a bound gazelle reflects actually quite expansive ideas about the triumph of order over chaos through the subjugation of the natural world. So the dish actually through its decoration and its function can tell us quite a lot about the importance of beauty in Egyptian society and what it means and represents to these people. So that's it for today's Barnes Takeout. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel to get your daily serving of art. And please leave a comment. We really enjoy reading these and responding to them. So please take care and stay safe. Thanks for watching and for your support of the Barnes Foundation.