Winged Genie Holding a Sacred Pail Relief in the Brooklyn Museum, August 2007

Winged Genie Holding a Sacred Pail
Alabaster
Neo-Assyrian Period, reign of Ashur-nasir-pal II (circa 883-859 BC)
Iraq, Nimrud (Kalhu), from room H of the Northwest Palace
Accession # 55.154

Originally these reliefs and all the others decorating the palace of King Ashur-nasir-pal II were brightly painted. When Henry Layard discovered them back in the 1840s, he reported traces of black paint on the figures' hair as well as white on their eyes and red on their feet. White paint was still visible on the eye of this genie as recently as the 1970s but it has since faded away.

Text from the Brooklyn Museum label.