Description: Fragment from the shoulder, rising into the neck, of a faience vessel. The shoulder is decorated with cornflowers on a pale blue background with green calyxes and dark blue flowers. A small fragment of the original glazed finish in white is preserved on the inside of the remnant of the neck.
Cultural Significance: The cornflower appears to have been introduced to Egypt from the Middle East during the reign of Thutmose III and swiftly became a common element in bouquets, garlands, and representations found in painted and sculpted architectural elements, and faience pendants in jewellery and inlay. It was particularly popular in Amarna as part of the polychrome faience repetoire. Representations of pots with garlands of fresh flowers and leaves are known from the New Kingdom and Malkata ware represents these in painting while faience pots such as this have modeled versions.
Comparanda: Petrie Museum UCL UC710 (exact parallel); UC677 & UC23080 (similar decorative program on vessel)

Notes:  Cornflowers feature in Egyptian jewellery such as earrings, pendants, and in floral decoration on broad collars, particularly in the 18th Dynasty. Floral collars, such as those found in Tutankhamun’s embalming cache, would have been worn by guests to the funeral banquet and then ceremonially buried (Aldred 1971: 226-227). Examples of preserved floral collars from Tutankhamun’s tomb featuring cornflowers can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/548831

Typically these collars included faience beads which were sewn on, and mass-produced into various shapes of an array of other flowers and plants including lotus petals, poppy petals and mandrake fruits (Aldred 1971: 231). On faience vessels, painted floral and fauna decoration was not only visually striking, but may also have connected to themes of beauty, fertility and abundance, a richness of resources that Egypt was blessed with through the inundation of the Nile. Flower and petal friezes are also found in Egyptian tombs as a popular form of decoration, and the use of garland designs became increasingly popular during and after the Amarna period (see for instance the Theban tomb of Neferhotep (Davies 1933: 49, plates LI, LIV).
J. Reichart, Pure and Fresh: A Typology of Formal Garden Scenes from Private Eighteenth Dynasty Theban Tombs Prior to the Amarna Period, 2020 pp. 186-188.
Aldred, C. 1971. Jewels of the Pharaohs: Egyptian Jewellery of the Dynastic Period. London.
Davies, N.G. 1933. The Tomb of Neferhotep at Thebes Vol. 1. New York.
Kantor, H. J. 1945. Plant Ornament: Its Origin and Development in The Ancient Near East. Chicago.

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