In 2018, the Carlos Museum acquired over 1,500 antiquities from the Georges Ricard Foundation in Santa Barbara, California. The collection had been formed in the 1970s by French entrepreneur Georges Ricard (1921–2012). From 1975 to 1978, Ricard displayed the objects at the Musée de l’Égypte et le Monde Antique in Monaco. By the 1980s, the museum had closed, and the collection was moved to Santa Barbara.
When the Carlos Museum was considering acquiring the collection, one of the factors we weighed was provenance. The Ricard family maintained a robust collections database that included provenance information when known. However, with the sheer number of objects under consideration, there was no way each object could be properly researched in a timely manner. The Carlos Museum made the decision to contact Egypt’s Ministry of Culture to discuss the specific Egyptian objects under consideration. With Egypt’s approval, the Carlos Museum accepted the collection as a gift from the Georges Ricard Foundation. Once the objects and the information from the database arrived in Atlanta, my work really began.
One of the centerpieces of the Ricard Collection is the mummy and coffin set of a woman named Taosiris who lived during the reign of Ptolemy II (282–246 BCE). Records from the Ricard database showed the group was purchased from Paris dealer François Antonovich in 1975. Based on information and documentation from Antonovich, the provenance for the coffin and mummy was given as: Ex coll. Caseneuve, received as a gift from the Khedive Isma’il; Ex coll. Gabriel Peytraud, Toulouse, France, by 1914; Ex coll. Marquis de Gestas, Tarbes, France, ca. 1915. One of the documents Antonovich had supplied was a 1914 letter from Charles Boreux of the Egyptian Department at the Louvre to Gabriel Peytraud. In the letter, Boreux provides his translation of the inscriptions on the coffin of Taosiris and an associated papyrus, both of which were said to be in the possession of Peytraud.
It is important to independently verify all provenance information and documentation. The 1914 letter was an easy place for me to start. I was able to get in touch with the Louvre’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities. They felt the paper the 1914 letter was written on is consistent with what the department is known to have used at the time. Moreover, they were able to confirm the handwriting, the hieroglyphs, and the signature belonged to Charles Boreux. With this verification, we feel confident that the Peytraud link in the provenance chain is true. I have not been able to confirm Caseneuve’s or the Marquis’s connection to Taosiris and her coffin, so research continues to determine where Taosiris was before and after her French holiday in 1914.
