Louis de Clercq, a Passion for the Levant: Selected Objects from his Collection at the Louvre Museum

Abstract

The Louis de Clercq Collection, housed in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum, comprises objects made of a range of materials, including bronze, stone, marble, and faience, as well as a number of scarabs and scaraboids. These items derive from a group of antiquities assembled in the Levant during the second half of the 19th century by Louis de Clercq, a French politician and antiquities collector. This article provides a brief overview of the history of the collection and examines a selection of bronze and stone objects as iconographic and material evidence for cultural exchanges and interactions between Egypt and the Levant during the 1st millennium BCE.