The Met Store Office*Egyptian Cat Magnet

Gifts for art lovers.

This elegant magnet nods to a proud cat statuette (664–30 B.C.) in The Met’s Egyptian art collection. Cat statuettes were among the most common zoomorphic dedications in Egypt’s Late and Ptolemaic periods; small examples would have been dedicated as offerings to temples or deposited in catacombs alongside cat mummies. The powerful goddess Bastet, a protective figure who could bring prosperity, was represented as a cat in zoomorphic form. Poised and alert, this cat sits upright and wears a broad collar, an adornment of beauty and power.