Anubis Sectarian Mystical Majesty — Print & Oil Painting

Thin gold circles have been scratched into the wall behind the figures, one inside another, slightly off centre and slightly broken. They are the only ornament in the painting and they do the work of a halo without belonging to any particular religion.

Three jackal heads stand in front of that wall, all in dark hoods and shapeless robes. The nearest fills the right half of the canvas in three-quarter profile, long muzzle, gold caps on the ear tips, a narrow gold band at the throat. The two behind are smaller, paler and set low, so the group reads as a procession caught mid-step rather than as a portrait.

Colour is almost absent. Slate blue-grey for the wall, charcoal for the robes, and then a wash of deep red bleeding up from the bottom edge into the lower third, changing the temperature of the whole surface without ever becoming an object you could name.

There is a documented practice behind this staging: during mummification an Egyptian priest wore a canine mask and became Anubis for the duration of the rite. Whether these three are gods or men in masks is left open, and the painting is better for refusing to answer.

This one lives in our Egypt collection. For the same god handled as a body in full daylight instead of a silhouette, see the charge across the sand.