Fig. 215.—Thothmes III. British Museum. Red granite. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
Some have thought that in these bas-reliefs, and in the Louvre statuette, the "facial characteristics and the peculiar shapes of breast and abdomen by which eunuchs are distinguished, are to be found."[230] On the other hand, we know that while still very young Amenophis IV. married the queen Nowertiouta, and that he had seven daughters by her. "It is probable, therefore, that if the misfortune alluded to really befell him, it was during the wars waged by Amenophis III. against the negro races of the south." In any case, Amenophis IV. bore no resemblance to any one of the long procession of princes whose portraits have come down to us, from the early dynasties of the Ancient Empire to the Roman conquest. Lepsius devotes a series of plates to the iconography of the Egyptian kings, and among them all we find nothing that can be compared to the almost fantastic personality of Amenophis, with his low, unintellectual forehead, his pendulous cheeks, his feminine contours, and his general expression of gloom and melancholy. The fidelity with which all these unpleasing features are reproduced is extraordinary, and can only be accounted for by the existence of a tradition so well established that no one thought of breaking through it, even when the portrait of a semi-divine monarch was in question.
There are other works dating from this period which show the same desire for truth at any price. One of the series of bas-reliefs discovered by Mariette in the Temple of Dayr-el-Bahari may be given as an instance. The subject of these reliefs is the expedition undertaken by the regent Hatasu against the country of Punt.[231]
Fig. 216.—Statuette of Amenophis IV. Height twenty inches. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
"In the most curious of these sculptures the savage chief advances as a suppliant. His wife walks behind him. Her hair is carefully dressed and plaited into a thick tail at the back; a necklace of large discs is round her neck. Her dress is a long yellow chemise, without sleeves, and reaching to the middle of her legs. Her features are regular enough, but virile rather than feminine, and all the rest of her person is repulsive. Her arms, legs, and chest, are loaded with fat, while her person projects so far in the rear as to result in a deformity over which the artist has dwelt with curious complacence." The legs, so far as the chemise allows them to be seen, are so large that they suggest incipient elephantiasis. The Egyptian artist was induced, no doubt, to dwell upon such a monstrosity by the instructive contrast which it presented with the cultivated beauty of his own race.[232]
Realist as he was when he chose to take up that vein, the Egyptian sculptor attained, however, to a high degree of grace and purity, especially in his representations of historic and religious scenes. When he had not the exceptional ugliness of an Amenophis IV. to deal with, he gave to the personages in his bas-reliefs a look of serious gravity and nobility which cannot fail to impress the greatest enthusiast for Greek models. He was no longer content with the sincere imitation of what he saw, like the artists of the Early Empire; his efforts were directed to giving everlasting forms to those superhuman beings, the Egyptian gods and Egyptian kings, with their sons and favourites, who lived in hourly communion with them. Egyptian art at last had an ideal, which it never realized with more success than in certain bas-reliefs of this epoch.
Mariette quotes, as one of the most learned productions of the Egyptian chisel, a bas-relief at Gebel-Silsilis representing a goddess nourishing Horus from her own breast. "The design of this composition is remarkable for its purity," he says, "and the whole picture breathes a certain soft tranquillity which both charms and surprises a modern connoisseur."[233]
We have not reproduced this work, but an idea of its style and composition may be formed from a bas-relief of the time of Rameses II., which we have taken from the speos of Beit-el-Wali (Fig. 255, Vol. I.). The theme is the same. A scene of adoration taken from a pier at Thebes (Fig. 176, Vol. I.) and, still more, a fine bas-relief in which Amenophis III. does homage to Amen, to whom he is presented by Phré, may also be compared with the work at Gebel-Silsilis. The movements are free and elegant, and nothing could be more expressive than the gestures of the two deities, than the attitude, at once proud and respectful, of the kneeling prince. The whole scene is imbued with sincere and grateful piety (Fig. 33, Vol. I.).
We find the same theme, with some slight variations, in the bas-relief at Abydos figured on page 390, Vol. I. The sculptures in the temple with which Seti I. adorned this city may be considered the masterpieces of Egyptian art in their own genre. Their firm and sober execution, and the severe simplicity of their conception, are well shown in our third plate. This royal figure, which we were compelled to detach from its companions in order that we might give it on a scale large enough to be of service, forms part of a composition which has been thus described by M. Charles Blanc: "Seated upon the round base of a column, we examined the noblest bas-reliefs in the world. Seti was present in his own temple. His noble head, at once human and heroic, mild and proud, stood out from the wall and seemed to regard us with a gentle smile. A wandering ray of sunlight penetrated into the temple, and, falling upon the gentle salience of the sculptured figures, gave them a relief and animation which was almost illusive. A procession of young girls, whose graceful forms are veiled only by their chastity, advance towards the hero with as much freedom as respect will allow.... Their beauty attracts us while their dignity forbids all approach. The scene lives before us, and yet the stone is but grazed with the chisel and casts but the gentlest shadow. But the delicacy of the workmanship is combined with such vigour of design and such true sincerity of feeling that these young women, who represent the provinces of Egypt, seem to live and breathe before us."[234]
The same qualities are found, though in less perfection, in those bas-reliefs which commemorate the conquests and military exploits of the great Theban Pharaohs on the pylons and external faces of the temple walls. The space to be covered is larger, the scene to be represented more complicated, than in the religious pictures, which, as a rule, include very few actors. The artist is no longer working for a narrow audience of gods, kings, and priests. His productions are addressed to the people at large, and he attempts therefore to dazzle and astonish the crowd rather than to please the more fastidious tastes of their social leaders. His execution is more rapid and less thoughtful, as may be seen in our illustrations taken from the battle scenes of Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum, and Medinet-Abou (Figs. 13, 85, 173, 174, 253, and 254, Vol. I.). In each of these scenes there is a central figure to which our attention is immediately attracted. It is that of the king, and is far larger than those of his subjects and enemies.
Sometimes he is on foot, his threatening mace raised above the heads of his prisoners, who kneel before him and raise their hands in supplication, as in a fine bas-relief at Karnak (Fig. 85, Vol. I.); more often he is represented standing in his chariot and dominating the tumult about him like a demi-god, driving a panic-stricken crowd before him sword in hand, or about to cleave the head of some hostile chief, whose relaxed members seem already to have felt the mortal stroke (Fig. 13, Vol. I.). Elsewhere we see him bending his bow and launching his arrows against the flying barbarians (Fig. 174, Vol. I.). "We could never look at this beautiful figure without fresh admiration," say the authors of the Description, "it is the Apollo Belvedere of Egypt."[235] Again we see the king returning victorious from his wars, long rows of prisoners march behind and before him, their hands tied at their backs and attached by a rope to the chariot of the conqueror. The horses which, in the battle scenes, we saw rearing and trampling the dead and dying beneath their feet, advance quietly and under the control of the tightened rein, and their dainty walk suggests that they too have a share in the universal satisfaction that follows a war well ended.
In all these reliefs the principal figure, that of the prince, is free and bold in design, and full of pride and dignity. These characteristics are also found in some of the secondary figures, such as those soldiers of the enemy who still resist, or the prisoners who resign themselves to the sovereign's mace (Figs. 13 and 85, Vol. I.). But the wounded and fugitives in these battle pictures are curiously confused in drawing and arrangement. If we take these little figures separately many of them are drawn and modelled well enough, but, taken as a whole, they are huddled up into far too narrow a space, and seem heaped upon each other in impossible fashion. The Egyptian sculptor has been fired with the desire to emulate with his chisel the great deeds of his royal master, and, in his ignorance, he has passed the limits which an art innocent of perspective cannot overleap without disaster.
The persistent tendency towards slightness of proportion, which we have already noticed in speaking of the First Theban Empire, is even more conspicuous in the figures of these reliefs than in the royal statues (Figs. 13, 50, 53, 84, 165, and 175, Vol. I.). Neither in these historical bas-reliefs, nor in those of the tombs, do we ever encounter the short thickset figures which are so common in the Ancient Empire.
In the paintings and bas-reliefs of Thebes this slenderness is more strongly marked in the women than in the men, and everything goes to prove that it was considered essential to beauty in the female sex. Goddesses and queens, dancing girls and hired musicians, all have the same elongated proportions. This propensity is more clearly seen perhaps in the pictures of the Almees and Gawasi of Ancient Egypt than anywhere else. Look, for instance, at our reproduction of a bas-relief in the Boulak Museum (Fig. 217). It represents a funeral dance to a sound of tambourines, accompanied in all probability by those apologetic songs, called θρῆνοι by the Greeks, of which M. Maspero has translated so many curious fragments.[236] All these women, who are practically naked in their long transparent robes, wear their hair in thick pendent tresses. Two young girls, quite nude, seem to regulate the time with castanets. A number of men, coming from the right, appear to reprove by their gestures the energetic motions of the women. This bas-relief is an isolated fragment, and without a date. It was found in the necropolis of Memphis and from its style Prisse ascribes it to the nineteenth dynasty, "a time when artists were mannered in their treatment of the female form, combining great softness of contour with an impossible slenderness of build. The execution is careless, but the movements and attitudes are truthful enough."[237] Our Plate XII. shows figures of the same general proportions, though rather better drawn.
This curious mannerism began to establish itself during the first renascence of Egyptian art under the twelfth dynasty. It was to last, and even to grow more conspicuous, until the centuries of final decadence. The growing influence of conventionality is to be seen in other signs also. As art repeated and multiplied its representations, and the spaces which it had to decorate increased in number and size, it had at its disposal, as we may say, a larger number of moulds and made more frequent employment of certain groups and figures which were repeated without material change. In the decorations of this period we find long rows of figures which are practically identical with each other. They look as if they had been produced by stencil plates. With all their apparent richness and their wealth of imagery the sculpture and painting of Thebes show a poverty of invention which is not to be found in the art of the early dynasties.[238]
The gradual falling off in their powers of observing and reproducing natural forms is singularly well shown in their imperfect treatment of those animals which had been unknown to their predecessors. The horse does not seem to have been introduced into Egypt until the time of the shepherd kings, but he soon conquered a high place among the servitors of the upper classes of Egyptians. He became one of the favourite themes of contemporary art. In all the great pictures of battle he occupies a central position, and he is always associated with the prowess of the sovereign. And yet he is almost always badly drawn. His movement is sometimes not without considerable vigour and even nobility, but his forms lack truth, he is generally far too thin and elongated. His head is well set on and his neck and shoulders good, but his body is weak and unsubstantial (Figs. 13 and 174, Vol. I.). The bad effects of conventionality are here strongly felt. The same horse, in one of the two or three attitudes between which the Egyptian sculptor had to choose according to the scene to be treated, appears everywhere. The sculptors of the Memphite tombs saw with a very different eye when they set themselves to surround the doubles of their employers with the images of the domestic animals to whom they were accustomed in life.
Fig. 217.—Funeral Dance. Bas-relief in limestone. Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.
The difference can be seen, however, without going back to the Ancient Empire. Compare the great historical bas-reliefs of the temples and royal cenotaphs with the more modest decorations of certain private sepulchres, such as those which were found in the tomb of Chamhati, superintendent of the royal domains under the eighteenth dynasty (Fig. 218). The sculptors return with pleasure to those scenes of country life of which the pyramid builders were so fond. The fragment we reproduce shows the long row of labourers bending over their hoes, the sower casting his seed, the oxen attached to the plough and slowly cutting the furrow under the whip and voice of their drivers. Neither men nor beasts are drawn with as sure a hand as in the tomb of Ti, but yet the whole appears more sincere than productions of a more official kind. The oldest and most faithful assistant to the Egyptian fellah, the draught ox, is at least much more like nature than the charger of the Theban battle pictures.
Fig. 218.—Bas-relief from the tomb of Chamhati. Boulak.
The dangers of routine and of a conventional mode of work seem now and then to have been felt by the Theban artists. They appear to have set themselves deliberately to rouse attention and interest by introducing foreign types into their eternal battle pieces, and by insisting upon their differences of feature, of complexion, of arms and costume. They were also fond of depicting other countries and the strange animals that inhabited them, as in the bas-relief which shows a giraffe promenading among tropical palms.[239] But in spite of all these meritorious efforts, they do not touch our feelings like the primitive artists of Gizeh and Sakkarah, or even of Beni-Hassan. Try as they will, they cannot conceal that soulless and mechanical facility which is so certain to fatigue the spectator. If we turn over the pages of Lepsius, we always find ourselves dwelling with pleasure upon the sculptures from the mastabas, in spite of their apparent similarity, while we have soon had enough of the pompous and crowded bas-reliefs from Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum and Medinet-Abou.
These defects are less conspicuous in figures in the round, and especially in the statues of kings. I do not know that the sculptors of the Setis and the Rameses ever produced anything equal to the portraits of Thothmes, Amenophis, and Taia, but there are statues of Rameses II. intact, which may be reckoned among the fine examples of Egyptian art. The features of no prince that ever existed were reproduced more often than those of this Rameses, who built so much and reigned so long. These reproductions, as might be supposed, differ very greatly in value.
In the huge colossi which sit before the Great Temple at Ipsamboul (Fig. 248, Vol. I.), the limbs are not modelled with the careful precision which would be required in the case of a life-size statue. The arms and legs appear rather heavy on close inspection, and in a photograph those parts which are nearest to the camera, namely, the legs and the knees, seem too large for the rest of the figure. But the heads are characterized by a breadth and freedom of execution which brings out the desired expression with great effect when looked at from a proper distance. This expression is one of thoughtful mildness and imperturbable serenity. It is exactly suited to the image of a deified king, sitting as eternal guardian of the temple which his workmen had hewn out in the bowels of the mountain.
Some discrimination must be exercised between the statues of Rameses which approach the natural size. We do not look upon his portrait when a child, which is now in the Louvre, as a masterpiece (Fig. 219). The noble lines of the profile, recalling his father Seti, are indeed his, but the eye is too large and the hands are treated with an elegance which is more than a little mannered. The uræus on his brow and the titles engraved by his side show that he was already king, but we can see that he was still very young, not so much by the juvenile contours of his body, as by the finger in his mouth and the lock of hair hanging upon his right shoulder. A statue at Boulak (Fig. 220) shows signs of carelessness rather than of affectation. In it Rameses is still a young man. The eyes, the small mouth, the calm and smiling visage, are all well modelled, but the legs are quite shapeless.
Fig. 219.—Portrait of Rameses II. while a child, actual size. Limestone. In the Louvre.
Fig. 220.—Statue of Rameses II. Boulak.
Some good bas-reliefs date from this reign. Among others we may name those prisoners of war bound together, which Champollion copied from the plinth of a royal statue in the Ramesseum (Fig. 221). The race characteristics are very well marked. The prognathous negro, with his thick lips, short nose, sloping brow, and woolly poll; the Asiatic, an Assyrian perhaps, with his regular, finely-chiselled profile and his knotted head-dress, are easily recognized. The movement of these two figures is also happy, its only defect is its want of variety. The same remarks may be applied to those sculptures on the external walls of the small temple at Abydos, which represent the soldiers belonging to the legion of the Chardanes or Sharuten, the supposed ancestors of the Sardinians. Their picturesque costume and singular arms have been described more than once. A metal stem and a ball between two crescent-shaped horns surmount their helmets; they are tall and slender, with small heads and short round noses.[240]
The finest statue of Rameses II. that has come down to our time is, perhaps, the one in the Turin Museum (Fig. 222). Its execution is most careful, and its state of preservation marvellous. The head is full of individuality and distinction. One of the king's sons is shown, on a very small scale, leaning against the foot of his father's seat.
Fig. 221.—Prisoners of war; Ramesseum. From Champollion, pl. 322.
Boulak possesses the upper part of a broken statue of Rameses, which is not inferior to this in artistic merit. The contours are singularly pure and noble.
Most of those who are authorities on the subject agree that art fell into decay towards the end of Rameses the second's long reign of sixty-seven years. Carried away by his mania for building, the king thought more of working rapidly than well. In his impatience to see his undertakings finished, he must have begun by using up the excellent architects and decorative artists left to him by his father. He left them no time to instruct pupils or to form a school, and so in his old age he found himself compelled to employ mediocrities. "The steles, inscriptions, and other monuments of the last years of Rameses II. are to be recognized at a glance by their detestable style," says Mariette.[241] With the fine bas-relief at Abydos which is reproduced in our Plate III., Vol. I., Mariette contrasts another which is to be found in a neighbouring hall and represents Rameses II. in the same attitude. In the former, the figure of Seti is expressed in the most delicate low relief, in the latter the contours of Rameses are coarsely indicated by a deeply-cut outline.[242] So too M. Charles Blanc: "As we pass from the tomb of Seti I. to those of Seti II. and Rameses IV., the decadence of Egyptian art makes itself felt, partly in the character of the pictures, which no longer display the firmness, the delicacy, or the significance, of those which we admired in the tomb of the first-named monarch, partly in the exaggerated relief of the sculptures."[243]
Unless Mariette was mistaken in his identification of one of the most remarkable fragments in the Boulak Museum, Thebes must have possessed first-rate artists even at the death of Rameses. M. Charmes thus speaks of the fragment (Fig. 223) in question: "By a happy inspiration, Mariette has given the bust of Queen Taia a pendant which equals it in attractiveness, which surpasses it, perhaps, in delicacy of treatment … it is the head of a king surmounted by a huge cap which weights it without adding to its beauty. It formerly belonged to a statue which is now broken up. The young king was standing; in his left hand he held a ram-headed staff.… It is impossible to give an idea of the youthful, almost childish grace, of the soft and melancholy charm in a countenance which seems overspread with the shadow of some unhappy fate. How did its author contrive to cut from such an unkindly material as granite, these frank and fearless eyes, that slender nose with its refined nostrils, and these lips, which are so soft and full of vitality, that they seem modelled in nothing harder than wax. We are in presence of one of the finest relics of Egyptian sculpture, and nothing more exquisite has been produced by the art of any other people. The inscription is mutilated by a fissure in the granite, but Mariette believes that the statue represents Menephtah, the son of Rameses II."[244]
Fig. 222.—Statue of Rameses II. in the Turin Museum. Granite. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
Fig. 223.—Head of Menephtah. Boulak. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
There is a colossal statue of Seti II., the son of this Menephtah, in the Louvre (Fig. 224). Although the material of which it consists, namely sandstone, is much less rebellious than granite, the features, which have a family resemblance to those of Menephtah, are executed in a much more summary fashion than in the Boulak statue, and yet the execution is that of a man who knew his business. The modelling of the muscular arms is especially vigorous.[245]
Fig. 224.—Seti II. Sandstone statue, fifteen feet high. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
There are hardly any royal statues left to us which we can ascribe with certainty to the twentieth dynasty, but at Medinet-Abou, both on the walls of the temple and in the Royal Pavilion there are bas-reliefs which show that the sculpture of Rameses III., the last of the great Theban Pharaohs, knew how to hold its own among the other glories of the reign. We have given a few examples of the pictures in which the king is shown as a warrior and as a high priest (Figs. 172 and 173, Vol. I.); other groups should not be forgotten in which he is exhibited during his hours of relaxation in his harem, among his wives and daughters.
Under the last of the Rameses the Egyptians lost their military spirit and, with it, their foreign possessions in the South and East. Inclosed within its own frontiers, between the cataracts in the South and the Mediterranean in the North, and enfeebled by the domination of the priests and scribes, the country became divided into two kingdoms, that of Thebes, under a theocratic dynasty, and that of Tanis in which the royal names betray a strong Semitic influence.
That worship of Asiatic divinities which, though never mentioned in official monuments, is so often alluded to in the steles, must then have taken hold of the people of Lower Egypt. Among these were Resheb, the Syrian Apollo; Kadesh, who bore the name of a famous Syrian fortress, and was but one form of the great Babylonian goddess Anahit, the Anaitis of the Greeks. Kadesh is sometimes represented standing upon a lion passant (Fig. 225).
Exhausted by its internal conflicts, Egypt produced few monumental works for several centuries. Many kings, however, of this barren period, and especially Sheshonk, have left at Karnak records of their military victories and of their efforts to re-establish the national unity. After the twenty-fourth dynasty Egypt became the vassal of that Ethiopian kingdom whose civilization was no more than a plagiarism from her own. During the half century that this vassalage endured, the southern conquerors gave full employment to such artists as Egypt had preserved. The latter were set to reproduce the features of the Ethiopian kings, but the works which resulted are very unequal in merit.
Sabaco caused the sides of the great door in the pylon of Rameses at Karnak to be repaired. The execution of the figures is by no means satisfactory. "The relief is too bold; the muscular development of the heroes represented is exaggerated to a meaningless degree; coarse vigour has taken the place of graceful strength."[246]
Fig. 225.—The Goddess Kadesh; from Wilkinson, Fig. 55.
But although these bas-reliefs, the only ones of the period which have been encountered, are evidently inspired by the decadence, the Egyptian sculptors seem to have still preserved much of their skill in portraiture. Mariette believes that a royal head in the Museum at Cairo represents Tahraka, the third of the Ethiopian sovereigns. It is disfigured by the loss of the nose. The remaining features are coarse and strongly marked and the general type is foreign rather than Egyptian.[247] However this may be, it cannot be denied that in the alabaster statue of Ameneritis, which was found at Karnak by Mariette, we have a monument of this phase in Egyptian art remarkable both for taste and knowledge (Fig. 226).[248]
During the Ethiopian occupation Queen Ameneritis played an important rôle in the affairs of Egypt. While her brother Sabaco was yet alive she was dignified with the title of regent, later she brought her rights to the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt to the usurper Piankhi, whom she married and made the father of Shap-en-Ap, who afterwards became the mother of Psemethek I.
Fig. 226.—Statue of Ameneritis. Alabaster. Boulak. Drawn by G. Bénédite.
The head of Ameneritis is covered with the full-bottomed wig worn by goddesses. She holds a whip in her left hand and a sort of purse in her right; there are bangles upon her wrist and ankles and the contours of her body are frankly displayed beneath the long chemise-like robe, which falls almost to her ankles.
The features are resolute and intelligent rather than beautiful, the squareness of the lower jaw and the firm line of the mouth being especially significant.
We have, then, every reason to believe this to be a good portrait. Both form and expression are just what might be expected in a high-born Egyptian female possessed of sovereign power. The treatment of the body is rather conventional. The bust, so far as it can be traced under the clinging robe, is younger than the head, which is that of a woman in middle life. With these reserves the statue is very pleasing. The arms are a little stiff, but the figure as a whole is characterized by a chaste and sober elegance. The modelling is not insisted upon too much, but its undulating contours are discreetly indicated under the soft though by no means transparent drapery. The whole work is imbued with the spirit of Saite art, an aftermath which was characterized by grace and refinement rather than by freedom and power.
After the last of the Ramessids the decadence of Egypt was continuous, but in the seventh century B.C. while the Ethiopians and Assyrians contended for the possession of the country, it was particularly rapid. Under Psemethek, however, there was a revival. The foreigners were driven out, the national unity was re-established, and Syria was again brought under the Egyptian sceptre. An artistic renascence coincided with this restoration of political well being, and the princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty set themselves to restore the monuments which had perished during the intestine troubles and foreign inroads. Their attention was mainly directed to the architectural monuments of Lower Egypt; but little now remains of the buildings which drew so much praise from the Greek travellers. Their sculptured achievements have been more fortunate. Their statues were sprinkled over the whole country, and many of them have been found at Memphis, at Thebes, and even among the ruins of cities which have long ago disappeared. Thus we find that most Egyptian collections contain figures which may be assigned to this time, or rather to this school, for the style held its own even as late as the first two or three Ptolemies. Among them may be mentioned the pastophorus[249] of the Vatican, the Arsaphes[250] of the British Museum, the statues of serpentine found at Sakkarah in the tomb of a certain Psemethek, a high officer under the thirtieth dynasty,[251] and the fine bronzes of Osiris discovered at Medinet-Abou.[252] All the bronzes found in the Serapeum belong to the same category.[253]
By means of secondary remains, such as sphinxes, steles, and scarabs, we can just contrive to get a glimpse at the features of those brilliant sovereigns who, after dazzling Egypt and the surrounding countries early in the seventh century B.C., fell before the first attacks of the Persians.[254] Many of their effigies must have been destroyed by the invaders, either at their first conquest, or during the three subsequent occasions when they were compelled to re-establish their ascendency by force. A similar fate must have overtaken the statues of Inarôs and Nectanebo, who succeeded for a time in restoring the independence of their country. For the whole of this period the royal iconography is much more scanty than for the two Theban empires.
We shall not dwell upon the figure in green basalt which stands in the middle of the Salle Historique in the Louvre. We know from the inscription upon its girdle that it represents the king Psemethek II. The execution is careful, but the work has suffered great mutilation, the head and parts of the limbs being modern restorations.[255] On the other hand, the two little bronze sphinxes which stand upon the chimney-piece in the same room are in excellent condition. According to De Rougé their heads reproduce the features of Ouaphra, the Apries of the Greeks (Fig. 227).[256] In the ground-floor gallery there are several sphinxes which, according to their inscriptions, should include portraits of some of those princes who between 527 and 332 B.C. temporarily freed Egypt from the Persian yoke; Nepherites, Achoris, Nectanebo, &c. None of them, however, show enough individuality in their features to suggest that they were copied from nature. Their heads are all clothed indiscriminately in the same elegance of contour, and in looking at them we find ourselves far indeed from the admirable portraits of the early empire, or even from that statue of Ameneritis which closes the series of royal effigies.
Fig. 227.—Bronze Sphinx. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
The chief pre-occupation of the Saite sculptor was to obtain suppleness of modelling and an apparent finish of execution, both of which, in his opinion, were effective in proportion as the material used was hard and unyielding.[257] His chisel was employed much more than formerly in fusing together the various layers of muscle which form the walls of the human structure. He did not lay so much stress on the skeleton, or on the leading lines of the figure, as his early predecessors. His care was mainly devoted to rendering the subtle outward curves and contours, and this he often carries to such excess as to produce a result which is simply wearisome from its want of energy and accent. There is a group at Boulak upon which too much praise has been lavished, to which this stricture thoroughly applies. It represents one of the Psemetheks, clothed in a long robe, standing before the goddess Hathor who is in the form of a cow. The head and torso are finely chiselled, but, through an exaggerated desire for elegance, the arms have been made far too long, and the divine cow is entirely without truth or expression. This defect is still more conspicuous in the two figures of Isis and Osiris that were found with this group. Their execution has reached the extremity of coldness through the excessive use of file and sand-paper.[258]
Fig. 228.—Statue of Nekht-har-heb, Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
Sometimes the sculptor knows where to leave off, and the result is better. The sandstone statue of Nekht-har-heb, in the Louvre, is one of the best productions of the Saite artists (Fig. 228).[259] The execution of hands and feet is sketchy, and the countenance is without much expression, but the attitudes of the arms and legs, the modelling of the trunk, and the pose of the head, unite breadth with facility and dignity to such a degree, that we are reminded, for a moment, of a Greek marble. In spite of the singular attitude there is much in the execution which recalls a much more ancient work, the statue of Ouah-ab-ra, which dates from the twenty-sixth dynasty (Fig. 51, Vol. I.)[260]
Fig. 229—Statue of Horus, Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
Not less remarkable is the headless statue of a personage called Horus, which dates from about the same period (Fig. 229).[261] It is of black granite and yet both limbs and torso are as delicately modelled as if they were of the softest limestone. The attitude of the arms is unusually easy and natural, and the whole figure is freer and less constrained than anything we find in the ancient statues. There is, too, a certain spirit of innovation discoverable in the feet. The toes are well separated and slightly bent, instead of being flat and close together.