Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (6.1965)

The realistically trcated body, thoagh conventional in its conception, the cut of the robe,
the position of the hands and the finished surface of the sculpture indicate that it was made
in a good workshop of the Middle Kingdom. The smoothening of the surface, the simplicity of the
lines and of the planes give it the nearly monumental character. Similarly as in other statuettes
of this type, we can admire the certainty with which the lights and shades are disposed, broadly
laid, facing each other and divided by the edges of the garment. No traces of a wig or the hair fal-
ling down to the shoulders seem to indićate that the head was shavcn what means that the
represented dignitary was probably a priest. It could be confirmed by an inscription sińce
often such texts were placed on the robe on the belly or, as it was generally made in the An-
cient Kingdom, at the back on the pillar or on the base. Unfortunately, the base of our statu-
ette is lost and, therefore, we are unable to identify the personage and, what follows, to fix
a precise date of the object. It is not excluded that an inscription was painted on the back pil-
lar and that the paint wore off. Our statuette has many common features with the well-known
statuę of Sebck-em-Saf in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna23. Both these sculptures
show the corpulence of the represented personages with realism nearing to naturalism. The
statute of Sebsk-em-Saf is more carefully finished24, the chest and the palms are carefully ren-
dered, but the robe is fitting to the body quite similarly, the disposition of light and shades is the
same, and also the characLeristic position of the hands with elongated and flattened palms. The
same type is exemplified by the very conventional and official representation of Amun-em-
-het-Ankh, the priest of the God Sebek of Chedit in el Fayyum, dated by Evers to the reign of
Amun-em-het III (Louvre, Inv.: E 11053)25. A similar position of hands and legs and an ana-
logous cut of the robe are to be remarkcd. The statuę of Amun-em-het-Ankh differs from other
statuettes of this type by a more slender proportions and a more careful modelling of the body,
represented in the so-ca!led "timeless youth" and by the traditional hairdress. A masterpiece
remarkable for its head conceived as a portrait may be found in the Pushkin Museum in
Moscow (Inv.: 5129)aG. This statuelte belongs to the same type as that in our Museum,
and the dimensions are the same in both cases. Pavlov dates the Moscow example to the reign
of the XIIth Dynasty. Another analogous statuette is in the Pelizaeus-Museum at Hildesheim
(Inv.: 84)a'. A statuette with a similar position of hands and the garment cut iikewise at
the front was published by Kocfoed-Petersen28 and dated also to the XIIth Dynasty. One mort
statuette of this type, known to me unfortunately only from a design by B.Hornemann29 (Mu-
seum in Cairo, Inv.: J.36511) comes also from Edfu, as the Warsaw statuę does. The pleats
of the robe in the lower part of the chest, directed upward, the cut of the robe at the front
and the modelling of the jjalms are strikingly similar. The hair is cut at the half of the ear
— our statuette could have had such a hairdress, too. The unsignificant differences discernible
in the modelling of the chest and in the position of the hands may be caused by an inaccuracy
of the drawing. The essential is the lack of the back pillar and smaller dimensions of the Cairo

23. Cf. note 6. The original base of the Sebek-cm-Saf statuę covered with inscriptions is in the Museum in Dublin.

24. The finer work of details is also connected with the larger dimensions of the Sebek-em-Saf statuę.

25. II.G. Evers, op. cit. pl. 96 (the statuę is of brown sandstone, 0.72 m high).

26. Cf. V.V. Pavlovop. cit. pp. 37-39, pl. 13,14 (the statuette is of gieen basalt and 0.32 m high) Cf. W.K. Malberg,
,,Mushskaya statuetka epoki średniego tzarstva", Pamiatniki Museya Isyashtchnykh Iskuslv, Moskva, 1912 pp.
37—39, pl. V. W.A. Turayev and W.K. Malberg, Opisanie eghipietskogo sobranya, I, Petrograd, 1917, p. 18, according
to these authors the inscription cngraved on the garment of the statuette, giving the name of the writer Amon
Jahmes, was engraved later for Jahmes who usurped the statuette.

27. G. Roeder, Die Denkmiiler des Pelizaeus Museums zu Hildeslieim, Berlin, 1921, p. 70 (the statuette of Neniu is of green
schist, 0.31 m high).

28. O. Koefoed-Petersen, Calalogue des statues egypliennes, Copenhague, 1950, p. 20, pl. 29 (the statuette is of granite
0,50 m high). An analogous statuette is in Baltimore, cf. G. Steindorff, Catalogue of the Egyptian Sculpture in the Wal-
ters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1946, pl. IX, 39 (Inv.: 22.4, black granite, 0.203 m high).

29. B. Hornemann, Typcs of Aneient Egyptian Slaluary, I, Kobenkavn, 1951, pl. 105. The statuette is dated to the reign
of the XIIIth Dynasty (black stone, 0.11 m high).

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