Hand Mirror
New Kingdom, Dynasty 18 (about 1550–1295 BCE)
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 20 × 10.3 × 2.2 cm (7 7/8 × 4 1/16 × 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Egypt
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The round disk of this hand mirror was originally polished to a reflective sheen. The elegant shape of the handle references papyrus plants that grew in Egypt’s marshy regions. Together, the handle and disk evoke an image of the sun rising from a papyrus umbel (flower cluster), a symbol of the sun’s daily regeneration. The ancient Egyptian words for mirror and life are homonyms, so this object’s shape also playfully refers to the ankh hieroglyph used to write both words.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
