Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (42.2001)

representations of Osiris. Its shape can be compared to a massive pillar
supporting as well as counter-weighing the eąually massive figurę of the god
wearing the high, heavy crown. Harmonious merging of the two elements
attests to compositional excellence in the sculpture.

Another important element of the Warsaw Osiris which can be detected upon
very careful inspection is the traces of gold preserved on its right cheek. Its
presence came to us as a surprise sińce it altered the conceptions of the finał
effect which was achieved when the perfectly smoothed surface of the sculpture
was coated with gold. The discovery allows to believe that the entire surface of
the face was coated in gold, most probably also the lost part of the statuette as
well as the atef crown. Therefore, it is the noble ąuality of the indestructible
metal rather than the perfectly smooth greenish-grey stone that was to express
the perfection of the image of Osiris. Thus, following the artistic-ideological
principle, the statuę left the sculptor's workshop as the “golden Osiris” - Usir
nebu - as ąuotes one of his epithets37 referring to the creative power of Isis who
brought her husband back to life thanks to knowing the secret of the reviving
power of gold. In present times goldplating is considered a purely artistic
practice whereas in ancient Egypt it had its religious aspect and was widely used
in architecture, depending on the function of the particular section of the
tempie, in sculpture as well as in sepulchral cult.38 The term “house of gold”
- hut nebu - was understood not only as a goldplating workshop but also the
name of the place in which, in the tempie of Opet in Karnak, the ceremony of
transformation of dead Osiris into god who regained his life with the help of
the precious metal was celebrated.39 Goldplating was done with thin flakes of

expression reappears on the portraits of Thutmose IV (ibid.., p. 311, pl. CIII, 1, 2). Also the
images of Amenhotep III, despite their great iconographic variety, are dominated by the
idealising style with its characteristic serene expression. Cf. Egypt's Dazzling Sun. Amenhotep
III and his World, ed. by A.P. Kozloff, B.M. Bryan, L.M. Berman, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum
of Art, Cleveland 1992, pp. 127-128. Meanwhile, the manieristic art of Amarna, with certain
realistic features, was no doubt a reaction to the idealising character of the rich sculpture legacy
of the reign of Amenhotep III. This artistic trend, although in a highly tempered form appears
in the depictions of post-Amarnan rulers Tutankhamen, Horemheb and Ay. However, the times
of Seti I and Ramesses II from the 19th Dynasty witnessed the revival of the benign, joyful
depictions of rulers modelled on those from the times of Amenhotep III (Vandier, op. cit., pp.
391-398, pis. CXXV, 2, 3, 4, 5, and CXXVI, 1, 2, 4). The latter tendency is still present in the
portraits of Merneptah and Seti II (ibid., pp. 398-399, pis. CXXIX, 5, 6; CXXVIII, 5). These
were the last instances of this style sińce the images of Ramesses III and his successors no longer
have the serene expression (ibid., pp. 400-404).

36 Cf. fig. 2, 3, 4, 5; and back pillars in the following Osiris statues - De Meulenaere, Bothmer,
op. cit., pl. III, Louvre, inv. no. E. 10706, pl. I, II, inv. no. N. 3952, 9418; G. Steindorf, The
Catalogue of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore 1946, inv. no. 22184, inv. no. 22348,
p. 105, pl. LXVIII, cat. no. 379, 382; Daressy, op cit., cat. no. 38231, p. 66, pl. XII, cat. no.
38235, p. 68, pl. XIV, cat. no. 38267, p. 70, pl. XFy cat. no. 38363, p. 98, pl. XX, cat. no.
38366, p. 99, pl. XX, cat. no. 38367, p. 106, pl. XX, cat. no. 38375, p.101, pl. XX; Josephson,
“Egyptian...”, op. cit., fig. 8, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 1972 118.195.

37 S. Aufrere, L'univers minerał dans la pense egyptienne, Cairo 1991, vol. 2, p. 372.

38 Idem, pp. 377-381.

39 Idem, pp. 374-375.

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