Livet, Jaques & Germond, Philippe

‘Of all the civilizations of the ancient world, none enjoyed such a close and significant relationship with the animal realm as that of the ancient Egyptians.’ So Philippe Germond, an Egyptologist at the University of Geneva, plunges into his subject in An Egyptian Bestiary (2001). But already he is outflanked on the facing page by the regal profile of a leopard’s head carved in sunken relief, the sharply incised contour framing it with a powerful line of shadow. Which is fitting, for this is above all a picture book, led by 280 spectacular photo­graphs (mostly credited to his co-author Jacques Livet) of artworks that speak across the millennia and challenge the imagination.