Sculpture of nursing Isis

Sculpture of nursing Isis enthroned. On her head, she wears cow horns with a solar disc between them, a crown of uraei, and an uraeus on her forehead. She is dressed in a tripartite wig that falls over her shoulders, a tight ankle-length tunic and an usekh collar round her neck. She cradles her son Harpocrates (the child Horus) with her left hand while the right is baring her left breast to nurse him.
Harpocrates is seated on her lap, arms limply pressed against his naked body, and wearing an uraeus on his forehead and an usekh collar round his neck.
In addition to motherly love, this statue also illustrates the founding myth of Egyptian royalty. Horus was the posthumous son of Osiris, who was murdered by his brother Seth. Seth cut Osiris into fourteen pieces and scattered them across Egypt, but Isis eventually found them and, thanks to her great magical powers, engendered their son Horus, whom she hid in the marshes of the Nile Delta. When he grew up, he avenged his father in a bloody battle where he lost his left eye but still managed to kill Seth.
The cult of Isis extended beyond the borders of Egypt, particularly during and after the Graeco-Roman period.
This figure was pictured in the Comte de Caylus’s Recueil d’Antiquités (1752–1767) and later became part of the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, entering the museum in 1867.