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The Great Enchantress

l993, oil on canvas, 24 x 31.5", by Jenny Badger Sultan

This painting, and the collage Arrival of the Great Enchantress were both inspired by a small metal pendant (in the King Tut exhibition) of a snake-woman nursing an infant Pharaoh, rather mysteriously titled The Great Enchantress.
Acrylic painting, 'The Great Enchantress', by Jenny Badger Sultan. Click to enlarge

Later I found this reference in “Amulets of Ancient Egypt” by Carol Andrews:

The cobra with woman’s head sometimes wears the low crown also associated with Isis, but on other occasions the Double Crown of Mut or the two plumes which link her with Renenutet, the harvest goddess, nurse and protectress of pharoahs. Tutankhamon’s gold example wearing feathers, horns and disc and depicted suckling the young king is actually named Weret-hekau (“Great Enchantress” or “Great of Magic”), unfortunately the epithet of more than one goddess, including Mut.
In my painting I shifted the young child from pharoah to a girl child.
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