LONDON.- At Frieze Masters 2026, David Aaron will exhibit museum-quality pieces exploring how power, faith, and survival have been expressed across millennia - from prehistoric giants to the divine authority of ancient Egyptian rulers and the enduring symbolism of the Roman Empire.
Presented at stand C02 from 14–18 October 2026, the display brings together exceptional antiquities and rare natural history specimens in a dialogue dating back approximately 68 million years ago. Bronze Corinthian helmets, monumental Egyptian sculpture, Roman marbles, and dinosaur fossils will collectively illuminate how societies and species projected dominance, permanence, and spiritual belief.
Among the principal highlights is a wooden Egyptian Statue of a Female Offering Bearer from the Late 11th- Early 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Remarkable for both its scale and condition, the sculpture retains extensive and vibrant polychrome decoration, a rarity to survive from antiquity. The striding figure would originally have been one of a group of sculptures placed within a tomb to serve its owner in the afterlife, reflecting the central role played by faith and status in ancient Egyptian civilisation, in both life and death.
The sculpture is further distinguished by its prestigious provenance, formerly in the collection of French art-historian, museologist and critic Madeleine Rousseau (1895-1980), notable for her significant contributions to the study of non-Western art and the musées vivantes or ‘living museum’ movement. The figure is mounted on a wooden base stamped with the maker’s mark of renowned artisan and stand-maker Kichizô Inagaki (1876-1951). A preeminent craftsperson in early 20thcentury Paris, Inagaki worked with artists such as Auguste Rodin and dealers including Joseph Brummer.
Further highlights include an ethereal sculpture of a Roman marble crouching Venus, goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation, from the Late 1st Century-Early 2nd Century AD. Depicted in the celebrated “Crouching Aphrodite” pose derived from a Hellenistic sculpture attributed to Doidalsas of Bithynia. The sculpture embodies Greco-Roman ideals of beauty, sensuality, and divine femininity, which shaped ancient religious and artistic culture for centuries. The marble was formerly in the collection of the renowned dealer and scholar François Antonovich.
Also on view will be a finely carved Egyptian Sculptor’s Model of a Royal or Divine Head dating to the reign of Nectanebo II or Ptolemy I, 360–282 BC. The figure’s tripartite wig identifies the subject as either royal or divine, while its deliberately incomplete nature suggests it may have functioned as a sculptor’s model used to demonstrate carving techniques for trainee artists and reflects the importance placed on artistic depictions of power. The relief is carved in a light pink-grey stone of a kind used sparingly during the New Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Period.
Notably, the Relief was formerly in the collection of Emile Miriel, a French public servant and professional who amassed a collection of antiquities during his business travels working for Crédit Foncier Egyptien. In 1922, Miriel was one of the key lenders to the Musée du Louvre’s exhibition to mark the centenary of scholar Jean-François Champollion translating hieroglyphs using the Rosetta stone. Works from Miriel, including this relief, were exhibited alongside pieces from the Louvre’s own collection.
Extending the exhibition’s exploration of power into the prehistoric world, David Aaron will present a group of rare fossils including a sub-adult Triceratops skull from the Late Cretaceous Period and a Sabre Cat skull dating to the Oligocene Period, circa 33.7–23.8 million years ago.
By juxtaposing ancient sculpture with prehistoric fossils, David Aaron’s Frieze Masters presentation highlights enduring human fascination with the forces that shape civilisation across time.
David Aaron Ltd will present at stand C02 at Frieze Masters, London from 14-18 October 2026.
