The accompanying illustrations are of objects in the Museum
of Fine Arts. All are of the Fourth Dynasty (2680-2560 B.C.) and fall into two
groups; first, portraits of private persons, high officials or princes, and
second, representations of kings and queens.
Figure 1 is the head of a prince whose name is not known.
It is rather conventional and represents a man of regular features
approximating to the Egyptian ideal of masculine beauty. While the face is
somewhat lacking in individuality, the head is one of the finest examples of
technical skill in handling soft white limestone of which the sculptors of the Old
Kingdom were capable.
Figure 2 is conceived in a very different spirit. It
represents a woman, wife of a prince of the royal house, and reveals the artist‘s
interest in a strongly individual head. The heavy skull and jaw, thick lips,
broad nostrils, and peculiar structural formation of cheek bones, brow, and
eyes contrast sharply with the regular features seen in Figure 1. It has often
been pointed out that this head shows strong negro characteristics, and it is
indeed quite possible that the woman represented was of mixed blood, possibly the daughter of an upper
Nilotic chieftain allied by marriage to the ruling house of Egypt. No concrete
evidence of this exists, however, and the question remains little more than an
interesting speculation In any case the head is no conventional type whether negro
or not - but a strongly individualized
representation of a particular person.
Figure 3 also carries conviction as a true portrait in the
modern sense. Somewhat summary in execution and finish, it betrays the hand of
a master working in broad planes and is instinct with personality.
In the case
of this head we are fortunate in having a second portrait of the same person,
this time in relief (Figure 4). He was
an official of the highest rank in the financial affairs of the government, “Overseer
of the Two Houses of Silver,” Nofer by name. In the relief the eye is, of
course, rendered according to the universal Egyptian convention which sought to
avoid foreshortening in two-dimensional representation; but if one compares the
profiles in the head and in the relief one cannot fail to note the faithful
rendering in each of the aquiline nose, the peculiar formation of the upper
lip, and the contours of chin and throat.
The most convincing example of individualized portraiture
in the Pyramid Age is the painted limestone and plaster bust of Ankh-haef shown
in Figure 5 This unique masterpiece is remarkable for several reasons. The
subject was of the highest rank, had the largest tomb in the royal family
cemetery at Giza, and the inscriptions on it tell us that he was the “eldest
son of the king’s body” (probably Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid), and
that he held the highest administrative offices in the kingdom, those of Vizier
and “Overseer of All Works of the King.” It is clear that he was an important
member of the immediate royal circle with the best sculptors of the court at his command. The
bust is exceptional both in form and material. It is neither a “reserve head”
nor was it ever part of a
complete statue, and we know of no other busts in the round like it. The technique
also is unusual, for the figure is carved out of fine white limestone and
completely covered with a layer of plaster of
Paris in which the finer modelling of the surfaces has been
executed. This was doubtless done while the plaster coating was still wet, and
the whole figure was then painted with the brick-red color normally used to
represent the flesh of men. This red color was even laid over the closely
cropped hair, a quite abnormal procedure, and only the eyes appear to have
been white with dark pupils. But what is most noteworthy noteworthy about this
unique head is its utter lack of convention and the startling realism of its
modelling. The magnificent shoulders, neck, and skull reflect keen observation
of nature and a thorough grasp of the structure beneath the surface. The
realistic rendering of the
rather small eyes is in marked contrast to normal Egyptian practice, and the
careful modelling of the face, the muscles round the mouth, and the pouches
under the eyes give evidence of minute observation of the living model. In the writer‘s
view the bust of Ankh-haef is the supreme example of realistic portraiture
which has survived from ancient Egypt, alike for its freedom from convention and
for its perfection of execution.
Source: DUNHAM Dows,
Portraiture in Ancient Egypt,
BMFA XLI, 68-72
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