A PAINTED TERRACOTTA FIGURE OF A HUMPED OX, MOHENJO-DAROIndus Valley Civilization, ca. 2600-1900 BC. Well modeled standing foursquare on a rectangular stepped base, a snake writhing along the edge of the base and the ox’s front legs, the head with pierced eyes and muzzle, further modeled with a short tail, the terracotta detailed with neatly painted geometric designs.Provenance: Bruno Cooper, Norwich, United Kingdom, 2010. Paolo Bertuzzi, acquired from the above. A copy of the original invoice from Bruno Cooper, dated 4 December 2010 and addressed to Paolo Bertuzzi, stating a purchase price of EUR 3,500 or approx. EUR 4,600 (adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Paolo Bertuzzi (1943-2022) was a fashion stylist from Bologna, Italy. He was the son of Enrichetta Bertuzzi, founder of Hettabretz, a noted Italian fashion company with customers such as the Rothschild family, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. Paolo Bertuzzi later took over his mother’s business and designed exclusive pieces, some of which were exhibited in the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, USA. He was also an avid collector of antiques for more than 60 years. His collection includes both archaic and contemporary art, and he edited two important books about Asian art, Goa Made - An Archaeological Discovery, about a large-scale archaeological project carried out with the Italian and Indonesian governments, and Majapahit, Masterpieces from a Forgotten Kingdom. Condition: Good condition, commensurate with age. Extensive wear, minuscule nicks, losses, expected old fills and repairs, signs of weathering and erosion, encrustations.Weight: 610.2 gDimensions: Length 17.5 cmThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age culture in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread. Its sites spanned an area from northeast Afghanistan and much of Pakistan to western and northwestern India. The civilization flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy. Both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa likely grew to a size of 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and the civilization may have contained between one and five million total population during its florescence. It is also known as the Harappan civilization, after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-Daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861. There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated by Neolithic civilizations, the earliest and best-known of which is Mehrgarh in Balochistan, Pakistan. Harappan civilization is sometimes called Mature Harappan to distinguish it from the earlier cultures.Mohenjo-daro is an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2500 BCE, it was the largest settlement of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, and Norte Chico. With an estimated population of at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered until around 1700 BCE. The city was abandoned in the 19th century BCE as the Indus Valley Civilization declined, and the site was not rediscovered until the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the first site in South Asia to be so designated.Literature comparison: Compare a related terracotta figure of a bull, 7.5 cm long, also dated 2600-1900 BC, in the British Museum, registration number 1986,1018.2009. Compare a related terracotta figure of a lion, 10 cm long, in the Lahore Museum, Pakistan, no. P1479.