Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (42.2001)

been preserved. This might indicate an attempt to shift from the ornamental
to a morę realistic style of eye modelling. An example of both techniąues
being used in one sculpture is a statuę from the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
with a preserved cartouche of Psamtek II, showing the noble Harbes holding
a statuę of Osiris in front of him (ill. 6).33 The eyes of Osiris are outlined with
cosmetic lines and his eyebrows are also extended towards the temples
whereas the eyes of Harmes are similar to those of royal figures. Also other
parts of Osiris' face show considerable resemblance to the statues discussed
above. They all share the same careful modelling of the mouth which gives the
face its benign expression. Also the atef-crown with the uraeus and the
braided beard covering only the tip of the chin were sculpted in the same style.

All the three faces of Osiris, the Warsaw one, the one from the tomb of
Psamtek in Saąąara, and that from the statuę of Harbes stored in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art share a benign expression. Satisfaction and even
a faint smile can be found in the expression of numerous depictions of kings
and private individuals. The artist achieved this effect through slightly lifting
the corners of the mouth or through careful modelling of the space around the
corners to bring out the inward curves, just as it is the case in the Warsaw
sculpture. Bothmer claims this type of face modelling to have appeared at the
end of the rule of Psamtek I, around the middle of the 7th century B.C. and
remained until the Ptolemaic times, when it became fully conventionalised.34
According to Bothmer, this could be a reaction to the realism which dominated
the visual art of the 25th Dynasty. However, he does not exclude the possibility
of the style being inspired by the youthful and happy-looking depictions of
some rulers from the 18th and 19th Dynasties, the height of Egypt's imperial
power.35

Also the back pillar in the stone sculptures of the Late Period can aid in dating
the object. This, however, does not apply to the figures of Osiris.36 The massive
back pillar reaching to the top of the crown and narrowing gradually towards
it, just as it has been preserved in the Warsaw, appears in all stone carved

33 Inv. no. 19.2.2, ESLP, p. 55, no. 48, pl. 44.

34 ESLP, p. 35; De Meulenaere, Bothmer, op. cit., p. 35.

35 Thutmose I is the first 18th Dynasty ruler whose face from the Osirian pillar is described by
J. Vandier, Manuel d'archeologie egyptienne, vol. III: La statuaire, Paris 1958, pp. 297-298,
pl. CXVIII, 6, as carved clearly in the idealising manner, portrayed with a mild smile. The same
way he describes the style of some representations of Hatshepsut [ibid., p. 300, pl. CXIX 1,3)
The idealising features of Hatshepsut's face are also emphasised by R. Tefnin, La statuaire
d'Hatshepsout, Bruxelles 1979. In his monograph on the iconography of Thutmose III (La
statuaire de Thutmosis III. Essai d'interpretation diun portrait royal dans sori contexte
historiąue, Liege 1998, p. 461) Dimitri Laboury agrees with the claim of Jadwiga Lipińska and

describes the statues of Thutmose III from Djeser-akhet as idealised and with a mild expression,
half-smiling. He concludes that the images of the first kings from the 18rh Dynasty - Ahmose
and Amenhotep display features modelled on those found in the images of Mentuhotep II,
while the representations of Thutmose I on the depictions of Sesostris I (ibid., p. 480, fig. 284,
285), whose benign expression sets it apart from the iconographic depictions of other Middle
Kingdom rulers. When analysing the images of other rulers from the 18th Dynasty Vandier
writes about lack of joy on the face of Amenhotep II (Yandier, op.cit., p. 306). The joyful

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