DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0093
SCULPTOR'S .MODELS.
61
limestone, each twenty-five centimeters in height, and appear to be graded
models for art-students, blocked out in the rough. The successive numbers
show continual improvement, until, in No. 60, we see a thoroughly finished
work. One of these models is cut through the middle, as though to bring out
the profile; and others are squared off, as though to establish the proportions
more accurately.
It has been conjectured, that these curious relics may be trial-heads, in
which the sculptor sought to get the portrait of the ruler he was to represent;
or that they may be officially prescribed portraits of the Pharaoh, sent out from
the capital at each new accession to the throne, to serve as the type to be
copied in all monuments in honor of the new monarch. A curious part was
otor's Model. Boolak. Cairo.
played by the portrait of the all-powerful Pharaoh during the reigns of Seti I.
and Rameses II., when it was quite customary, in making statues, to give them
the royal physiognomy, although intended for other people. Even humble
vases were adorned with the head of the monarch.
In regarding the colossi and other elaborately finished sculptures of this
brilliant epoch, we naturally imagine that the Egyptians must then have been
possessed of all the refinements of a thoroughly developed technique. M.
Soldi has, however, shown that this was not the case ; nearly all the monuments
bearing marks of the primitive character of the tools with which they were
executed, as seen especially in the cavities of the hieroglyphics.94 The high
polish finally given killed out all irregularities, leaving the work like a grandly
61
limestone, each twenty-five centimeters in height, and appear to be graded
models for art-students, blocked out in the rough. The successive numbers
show continual improvement, until, in No. 60, we see a thoroughly finished
work. One of these models is cut through the middle, as though to bring out
the profile; and others are squared off, as though to establish the proportions
more accurately.
It has been conjectured, that these curious relics may be trial-heads, in
which the sculptor sought to get the portrait of the ruler he was to represent;
or that they may be officially prescribed portraits of the Pharaoh, sent out from
the capital at each new accession to the throne, to serve as the type to be
copied in all monuments in honor of the new monarch. A curious part was
otor's Model. Boolak. Cairo.
played by the portrait of the all-powerful Pharaoh during the reigns of Seti I.
and Rameses II., when it was quite customary, in making statues, to give them
the royal physiognomy, although intended for other people. Even humble
vases were adorned with the head of the monarch.
In regarding the colossi and other elaborately finished sculptures of this
brilliant epoch, we naturally imagine that the Egyptians must then have been
possessed of all the refinements of a thoroughly developed technique. M.
Soldi has, however, shown that this was not the case ; nearly all the monuments
bearing marks of the primitive character of the tools with which they were
executed, as seen especially in the cavities of the hieroglyphics.94 The high
polish finally given killed out all irregularities, leaving the work like a grandly