Mafdet-Bastet

Name: Mafdet-Bastet
Brand: Raknida
Price: 55.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Sandro Perovic

Illustration of two cat-headed Egyptian goddesses in white gowns holding hands: a cheetah-headed figure raising a tray with a bleeding heart, and a grey cat-headed figure holding a gold sistrum.

$55.00

Cheetah-headed Mafdet, holding a bleeding heart, walks hand in hand with grey cat-headed Bastet and her sistrum. Sandro Perovic's illustration is inspired by the goddesses of ancient Egypt.

Mafdet-Bastet is a Studio Edition: 20 museum-quality art prints in each size, each numbered in its white border. Every artwork comes with its Cultural Passport.

The Cultural Passport

Every order comes with the heritage documented.

Digital, emailed when your order ships: the work's story, the tradition it draws on and how it was made. 5 × 7 in (13 × 18 cm), ready to print and frame beside the work.

How it works →

Put these two goddesses side by side and you have a short history of the cat in Egypt. On the left stands Mafdet, the earliest of the feline deities. She is cheetah-headed, a spotted pelt over one shoulder with its paw hanging free, two gold cobras rising from her brow. On the right is Bastet, grey and composed, with gold earrings, a broad gold collar and a sistrum, the sacred rattle, raised in her hand.

Look at what Mafdet carries. On a tray held high sits a heart, still dripping. In Egyptian belief she was a swift executioner who brought the hearts of wrongdoers before the king, and a protector against snakes and scorpions. Bastet, worshipped later, guarded the home, women and the household. Sandro Perovic, a Croatian illustrator who returns to Egypt again and again, does not set them in sequence. He lets them hold hands, as if justice and comfort were always meant to walk together.

Motifs in this work

Bleeding heart on a tray: Mafdet's judgement of wrongdoers

Sistrum: Bastet's sacred rattle, music and household joy

Joined hands: fierce protector and gentle guardian as companions

Edition: Edition of 20 in each size · 20 across all sizes. Further runs possible once a size sells out, each tagged (Run 2). Edition numbers count the works sold through Raknida; the artist may also sell their own editions of this work.
Numbering: Number, title and artist printed in the white border.
Printing: Museum-quality giclée with archival pigment inks on museum-grade cotton fine art paper.
Includes: Your numbered artwork and its Cultural Passport.

Size	Sheet	Image	Museum-Quality Print only	Framed	Available
S	9 × 12 in	7½ × 10½ in	$55	+$65	20

The artist

Sandro Perovic

Undeclared · Zagreb, Croatia · 2 works on Raknida

Sandro Perovic is a Croatian illustrator based in Zagreb whose work is inspired by ancient Egypt. He draws its gods and rulers with an illustrator's warmth and a sharp eye for regalia. He picks out the striped nemes headdress, the cobra diadem, the sistrum, the broad gold collar. In Family he gathers a pharaoh, his queen and their six children into one close group. In Mafdet-Bastet, two feline goddesses, one fierce and one gentle, walk hand in hand. His wider Egyptian series reaches from the gods Anubis, Atum and Nut to the pharaoh Taharqa.

View full profile →All 2 works →