And so they had a lot of beautiful things. Amazing workmanship on these things, they took inspiration from Greek (and even Egyptian) themes. They didn't always understand the earlier cultures. A lovely obsidian bowl was inlaid with an assortment of Egyptian motifs. Beautiful details and colors, but the artist featured a man holding the menat necklace (which they never did). Also someone was seated oddly on a chair featuring something like the 'sem-tawy' scene, not understanding it was for pharoahs and 'the unification of the two lands'.

But the silliest of things was the bronze sculptures of Grecian deities, designed to hold trays of food at parties!
(No photos, for they weren't allowed at a travelling exhibition. We did get a DVD which will be a nice keepsake, however.)

Still, all of the collection was beautiful. Two talkative ladies in the restaurant said this is nothing compared to what we will see at the Getty Villa. (That's on the schedule for Thursday.)

After being refreshed from lunch, we saw the small gathering of Egyptian items, more items from the Ptolemic times than any other, but they did have a nice New Kingdom relief, which was quite undamaged:

Round-topped Stela of Iuf-er-bak Egypt, Thebes, Mid-18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, circa 1391 - 1353 BCE Limestone with traces of pigment, 26 3/4 x 17 1/4 in. (67.95 x 43.82 cm) Purchased with funds provided by Phil Berg, LACMA AC1999.2.1

(From the info card)
"Iuf-er-bak, a noble from the Egyptian capital city of Thebes, stands at the right accompanied by his wife and two sons. The men carry floral funerary offerings, while in the register below, seven relatives are seated at a funerary banquet. Iuf-er-back is identified by his name and titles inscribed above his head as the 'guardian of the storehouse of the Temple of Amun,' while his wife is described as 'Nebut-iunet, mistress of the house.'

"The stela is carved in the extremely delicate, refined style of the Mid-eighteenth Dynasty, specifically that of the reign of Amenhotep III, considered to mark the apex of Egyptian artistic production. Hallmarks of this tradition can be seen in the finely detailed facial featured, the elongated proportions of the figures, and the careful rendering of the transparent garments."