Statue of Isis Nursing the Child Horus
Description
Object Label: Birth and rebirth took place within a family. Ancient Egyptians regarded the first royal family—including Osiris, his wife Isis, and their child Horus—as the model to imitate. But even with the joy of a birth, death was present: Osiris and Isis conceived their child through magic following his murder by his jealous brother. After the procreation of Horus, Osiris retired to the afterlife as the divine king of the Netherworld, while Isis gave birth and then raised Horus until he was ready to rule Egypt. Osiris’s life, death, and rebirth into the afterlife formed a pattern that all Egyptians sought to replicate in the tomb. Using the power of language, the deceased was addressed as Osiris during the funeral ritual. Osiris was added to the personal name and written on the coffin. In this case, too, language could shape reality for the Egyptians. Caption: Statue of Isis Nursing the Child Horus, 664–332 B.C.E.. Bronze, 10 7/16 x 2 11/16 x 3 7/16 in. (26.5 x 6.9 x 8.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.371E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
Bronze figure of a female deity seated with one hand raised toward a kneeling/standing child, with long headdress elements flaring upward behind her head.
The image shows a small bronze statue standing upright against a light background. A female figure wears a tripartite wig/headdress profile and a broad collar. Two tall, curved/feather-like elements rise behind or above her head. The figure sits or stands with knees bent; her arms are held inward across her torso, and one arm is raised toward the child positioned at her lap/side. The child is nude and partially embraced by the figure; the composition evokes the nursing motif associated with Isis and Horus. No clear cartouche or legible hieroglyphic inscriptions are visible. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is present. The surface shows patination and weathering consistent with an aged metal object.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.371E tier-2
- BKM-Object 117027 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.