Egyptian Art: Studies

by G. Maspero

III

It is with the statues of the XVIIIth Dynasty discovered at Karnak by M. Legrain as with those of the XIIth: directly we look at them we notice distinctive signs of the school, with modifications that are explained when we consider the position of Thebes at that period. The favourite residence of the Pharaohs and permanent seat of their government, its prosperity was continually increased by the booty gained in Syria or Ethiopia, and as wealth increased, so did the taste for building. Not only did the kings never tire of embellishing the city, but, following their example, private individuals built sumptuous palaces and tombs there. For so much activity a large supply of artists was needed: studios multiplied, sculptors came from all parts of the country to supplement the few Theban sculptors. Those strangers did not join the local school without exercising some influence on it: it was subdivided into several branches, each of which, while preserving a common ground of precepts and habits, soon assumed its personal physiognomy. We already know two or three of them, but how many must there have been during the three centuries that the Dynasty lasted, all the work of which is lost for us or confused with the mass?

BUST OF THOUTMÔSIS III.

Grey Schist.

I like to attribute to the same studio, besides a certain number of pieces recently acquired by the Cairo Museum, three of the best fragments extricated by M. Legrain from the favissa, the Thoutmôsis III, the Isis, and the Sanmaout. The Thoutmôsis III is in a very supple schist that allows the most delicate chiselling, and no engraving can do justice to the delicacy of the modelling: the play of the muscles is discreetly noted, but with extraordinary sureness, and, the imperceptible shadows it produces varying in proportion as we walk round the figure, the aspect of the physiognomy seems to change from moment to moment. Isis was not of royal birth, and perhaps came from one of the lower strata of society: five-and-twenty years ago her existence was not suspected, and the Karnak statue in pink granite is the first portrait we have of her. It is through her, however, that Thoutmôsis III possesses the features by which he differs from his predecessors, the large aquiline nose, wide-opened, almost protruding eyes, full mouth, rounded face. The heavy wig he wears made the sculptor’s task difficult; so much the greater then is the merit in conceiving a work before which we pause, even by the side of the preceding one. It contains all the characteristics of the Theban school, the seeking after the personal expression, the sincerity of the rendering, the width of the shoulders and, as a set-off, the intentional smallness of the waist between the ample breasts and broad hips. Study of the composition compels us to attribute it to the same studio, if not to the same artist to whom we owe the statue of Thoutmôsis III. I think the same about the group representing Sanmaout and the little princess Nafêrourîya whose steward he was: nothing could be less conventional than the free, firm gesture with which he holds the child, or the posture of trusting abandon with which she leans against his breast. The frankness of the movement well harmonizes with the spiritual gentleness of the face and the smile that animates the eyes and the full lips. Sanmaout was Queen Hachopsouîtou’s major-domo, and his sovereign had authorized him to erect his statues in the temple of Amon. After examining those that remain to us, it cannot be doubted that they all come from one of the royal studios, most probably the one whence came later the statues of Thoutmôsis and his mother Isis.

ISIS, MOTHER OF THOUTMÔSIS III.

And we have direct proof that the Theban sculptors of that period tried above everything to make sure of the likeness. They drew their subject over and over again before definitely making the rough sketch, and the dry climate of Egypt has preserved many of their cartoons. Cartoon is not exactly the term, since they used fragments of limestone for their studies, but the word ostraca by which they are designated is not much better, and, further, is only intelligible to expert Egyptologists. Hundreds of them have found their way to the Cairo Museum, and they show the attempts of the artist, his hesitations and corrections, the variations of his thought and of his hand, down to the moment when he became absolute master of his model. More than once, too, the chances of excavation have brought the model itself to light, and provided us with the means of comparing the portrait with the original. That is the case with Thoutmôsis III. His mummy was found in 1881 in the favissa of Deîr-el-Baharî and is exhibited with the others in the Gallery of Sovereigns in the Cairo Museum. The face has certainly greatly changed in course of mummification, and the shrunken flesh, the sunken eyes, the flattened nose, and the discoloured skin make him very different from what he was formerly. But if the superficies has changed, what is beneath has endured: if we compare the profile of the face with the mask of the statue, we must admit that they are identical, with the addition of the life, the expression of which was perpetuated by the sculptor.

SANMAOUT AND THE PRINCESS NAFÊROURÎYA.

Black granite.

Let us skip a century and a half, and transport ourselves to the last years of the Dynasty: they have bequeathed us several pieces that must be related to a common origin: the fine woman’s head that Mariette called Taia, the Khonsou and the Amon of Harmhâbi,[50] the Toutânoukhamanou, and perhaps also the statuette in petrified wood extracted from the favissa by Legrain in 1905. Is not a portrait of Aî to be recognized there? It is broadly treated despite its restricted dimensions, but the unfortunate material employed did not allow the artist to go far as regards execution: the likeness remains uncertain. But it preserves the mark of the school, and various details in the nose, mouth, the cut of the eyes, the inset of the eyebrows, lead me to think that we shall probably be right in attributing it to the group of artists to whom we owe the Khonsou and the Toutânoukhamanou. I am certain that they come from the same hand, and an instant’s examination will prove it. The two figures might almost be superimposed: the eye is hollowed out in an identical amount in both, the attachment of the nose is similar, and so is the way of slightly inflating the nostrils and of dilating the middle of the lips and compressing the corners. The physiognomy has something ailing in it, but the indications of ill-health, the obliquity and bruised appearance of the eyes, the thinness of the cheeks and neck, the prominence of the shoulder-bones, are more perceptible in the Khonsou than in the Toutânoukhamanou; we might say that the model of the Khonsou, if it is not Toutânoukhamanou at a more advanced age, had a more visible tendency to consumption. A doctor should study them both: he alone could decide, if, as I imagine, they represent a sick man, and possibly he could, according to the external aspect of the subject, establish the exact diagnosis of the disease.

The similarities are less marked in the head called Taia, and they are not at once noticeable in the engraving: but they are clear to those who have studied the originals. In a slighter degree all the details I have noted in Khonsou and Toutânoukhamanou are there: the queen is not a sick woman, but the different parts of her face are treated in the same way, and the hand which sculptured them is that which so delicately chiselled the portraits of the god and the Pharaoh, its contemporaries. Even when only the queen was known, her strange physiognomy greatly excited the imagination of scholars. Mariette, who discovered her, thought her a stranger to Egypt; he identified her with Tîyi, the wife of Amenôthes III, and declared her to be Syrian, Hittite, Armenian, and his opinion long prevailed. We know now that her date is at least a quarter of a century after Tîyi, and that she represents the wife or mother of Harmhâbi, one of the Pharaohs who succeeded the heretical sovereigns of the XVIIIth Dynasty. And in fact the portraits of Tîyi that have recently emerged from the earth have no point of likeness with that of Mariette’s queen. They present a woman of a thin bony type, with heavy jaw and long depressed chin, a low receding forehead, the physiognomy of the Pharaoh Khouniatonou with which the bas-reliefs and statues of El-Amarna have familiarized us. By the form and expression of her face our queen is allied to the family of Harmhâbi or Toutânoukhamanou: the resemblance of her statue to those of Legrain would sufficiently prove it, if further proof were required.

And now, when the two groups I have just described have been compared, it is easily admitted that the inspiration and technique of the second proceed directly from the inspiration and technique of the first. Taste fluctuated during the five or six generations that divide them, and the caprices of fashion have influenced the execution: but the general characteristics remain unchanged, and their persistence allows us once again to assert the continuity of the school.

STATUETTE IN PETRIFIED WOOD.

THEBAN KHONSOU.

Granite.

STATUE OF TOUTÂNOUKHAMANOU.

Red granite.

THE SO-CALLED TAIA.

White limestone.

RAMSES II.

Alabaster. Turin Museum.

RAMSES IV LEADING A LIBYAN CAPTIVE.

Grey granite.