Statuette of Isis Nursing Horus

Place of OriginEgypt

Dateabout 650 BCE

DimensionsH. 3 7/8 in. (9.8 cm). With base: 4 7/8 × 1 1/2 × 2 1/4 in. (12.4 × 3.8 × 5.7 cm)

MediumIvory with Egyptian blue inlays and traces of gilding

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LineOrion Fund

Object number

2011.14

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02, Classic

DescriptionA finely carved ivory statuette showing the goddess Isis seated on a low-backed throne, offering her breast to the infant Horus. The figures are composed in canonical lactans posture: Isis upright, Horus across her lap, their hands in protective, inward-turned gestures. Isis wears the red crown of Lower Egypt. Egyptian blue and gilding are partially preserved. Mounted on a 19th-century inscribed base.

Label TextThis small, finely carved sculpture shows the goddess Isis offering her breast to her son Horus. The scene, known as "Isis lactans" in scholarship, symbolized divine maternity, healing, and the transmission of royal power. Carved from imported ivory and once richly ornamented, the figure retains shimmering traces of Egyptian blue, especially visible in Isis’s hair, hinting at its original brilliance. She wears the red crown of Lower Egypt, identifying her with the royal ideology of the Nile Delta during the Kushite 25th Dynasty. According to Egyptian myth, Isis raised Horus in secret after the murder of Osiris, using protective magic to heal him from fevers, stings, and illness. The gesture captured here, both intimate and formal, conveys nourishment and cosmic order. Statuettes like this were dedicated in temples to invoke Isis’s blessings for health, fertility, and long life.Published ReferencesBurlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of the Art of Ancient Egypt, London, Printed for the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1895, p. 24, no. 53.

Exhibition HistoryLondon, Burlington Fine Arts Club, “The Art of Ancient Egypt”, 1895.

Toledo Museum of Art, “The Egypt Experience”, October 2010 – January 2012.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Mummies: From Egypt to Toledo, February 3- May 6, 2018.