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Mitchell, Lucy M.
A history of ancient sculpture — New York, 1883

DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0057

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TOMB STATUES OF THE MEMPHITIC OR ANCIENT EMPIRE. 25

The figure of Ra-em-ka's wife, of blacker wood, and found in the same tomb,
has, on the other hand, a different character. Although head and torso alone
are preserved, we can nevertheless detect in this less realistic fragment an ele-
gance lacking in the comfortable form of the worthy spouse himself. Clothed
with a tight robe, her body resembles that of Egyptian women of to-day, hav-
Ing slender hips and lean arms.

The statue of Ra-nefer, likewise an official of the Fifth Dynasty, and,
according to the inscription, a priest of Ptah and Sokar, is of quite a different
character from that of the jovial Ra-em-ka. In his limestone statue at Boolak,
:-73 meter in height, Ra-nefer stands before us in hieratic attitude, with left
*°ot advanced, both arms dropped at his side, and holding tightly in each hand
a Papyrus-rod. Around his loins is a scant apron, the Egyptian shenti. His
tace has speaking portrait features ; and his form, skilfully rendered, is like that
°t the modern fellah of upper Egypt, lean, as if dried by the burning sun under
which he lived.

The famous Scribe of the Louvre (Fig. 8) is better known than the statues
thus far discussed. This limestone figure is seated in Turkish fashion, an atti-
ude by no means easy to express in
sculpture. This speaking face and
lean form belong to Skemka, the
Scnbe, who seems here busily en-
gaged with his professional duties, as
ne> doubtless, often was in life, while
recording for his master. A reddish
tone covers his skin, and his eye is of
lc intricate workmanship of many
statues of this time.

From this unattractive face let us
turn to regard that magnificent frag-
ment in the British Museum, the head
ot a benignant old aristocrat in cal-
careous stone (Fig. 9). We see here
how admirably the ancient sculptor _____

r>p»-f^ -. Fig. 8. The Scribe. Louure.

pcrtormed the task — confessedly one

unusual difficulty — of portraying character in life-size forms. A certain
'mdliness of expression, combined with the flaccidity of age in the skin, sug-
gests the work of some Egyptian Holbein. The large, wavy wig, the fresh
aturalness in treatment, as well as the site of discovery, Memphis, mark this
0Dleman as a representative of the pyramid period. This and other works
1 rove, that, in statues of that earliest time, the ear had its natural position in
le head, and that the eyes were not elongated by strips extending to the ears,
r the eyebrows expressed by elevated bands, as they were in much later
 
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