Statue of a cat

The main section of the Giovanni Acerbi collection was donated to the Civic Museum of Mantua in 1840. Already at the end of the eighteenth century this museum possessed two Egyptian statues. The donated works became part of the permanent collection in 1925 and were displayed in the halls of Palazzo Ducale; in more recent times they formed the core of the collection belonging to the Museum in Palazzo Te. This beautiful sculpture of a cat is one of the most important items of the collection for its artistic value. Thirty-six centimetres in height, it was shaped with great attention and realism, giving particular emphasis to the musculature and to the noble pose of the head. The cat was a sacred animal in ancient Egypt, and was linked to the goddess Bastet. The work of art dates to the twenty-fifth dynasty, in the Third Intermediate Period after the New Kingdom, characterized by the rule of Nubian sovereigns, descendants of the priests of Amon who had been driven out of Thebes centuries before.