Art Institute of Chicago

Kohl Jar with Lid

EgyptianLinkedCulture matchlcp-b3f2759025d0

Date: Middle Kingdom-early New Kingdom, Dynasty 12-early Dynasty 18, about 1985-1479 BCE
Medium: Travertine (Egyptian alabaster)
Culture: Egypt
Department: Arts of Africa
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 136371

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

This small container was designed to hold kohl, a cosmetic eye paint made of ground galena or malachite. Ancient Egyptian men and women wore kohl for its aesthetic appeal but also to dampen the harsh sunlight of North Africa and possibly even for medicinal purposes. Containers like this were buried with their owners for continued use in the afterlife.

View at Art Institute of Chicago ↗

The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page

See at Art Institute of Chicago

Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line: Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson
Provenance: Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859-1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1894.

Linked open data

Authority identifiers that link this record into the wider web of cultural data — stable references you can follow to the source.

Object type: AAT300193015

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Art Institute of Chicago and other institutions.