Volume II Part 16 (2/2)

In the case of a limestone head, covered with red paint, which stands in the _Salle Civile_, in the Louvre, the craniue, the cheeks themselves are as hollow, the chin as protuberant, and the whole head as bony and fleshless We do not knohence it cae, Mariette, and Maspero, that this head is a masterpiece from one of the early dynasties It may be put by the side of the Meidoum couple for its vitality and individual expression The unknown original arity, but it rouses in the spectator the same kind of admiration as a Tuscan bust of the fifteenth century, and a pleasure which is not die is under his eyes passed fro 177)

The little figure which occupies the place of honour in this sah ment just described It was found by Mariette in the to his excavation of the Serapeuures of the same kind were found with it, but are hardly equal to it in merit

They are believed to date from the fifth or sixth dynasty

This scribe is seated, cross-legged, in an attitude still familiar to those who have visited the East The most superficial visitor to the Levant must have seen, in the audience-hall of the _cadi_ or _pacha_, the _kiatib_ crouching exactly in the sa sentences with his rapid _kale; his thin and bony features are vibrating with intelligence; his black eye-balls positively sparkle; his mouth is only closed because respect keeps hih and, square, his chest ae People who follow a very sedentary occupation generally put on much fat on the front of their bodies, and this scribe is no exception to the rule His arms are free of his sides; their position is easy and natural One hand holds a strip of papyrus upon which he writes with the other, his pen being a reed The lower parts of the body and the thighs are covered with a pair of drawers, whose white colour contrasts with the brownish red of the carnations The breadth and truth hich the knee-joints are indicated should be remarked The only details that have, to a certain extent, been ”sca half hidden by the folded legs, the sculptor has left them in a very rudimentary condition

[Illustration: THE SCRIBE

(LOUVRE)

Imp Dufrenoy]

[Illustration: FIG 175--Wooden panel frooin]

The eyes forure ”They consist of an iris of rock crystal surrounding a metal pupil, and set in an eyeball of opaque white quartz The whole is framed in continuous eyelids of bronze”[181]

[181] DE ROUGe, _Notice soyptiens_, 1865, p 68

This clever contrivance gives singular vitality and animation to the face Even the Grecian sculptor never produced anything so vivacious

The latter, indeed began by renouncing all attempts to imitate the depth and brilliancy of the human eye His point of departure differed entirely from that of his Memphite predecessor; his conception of his art led hiyptian would have used colour, to be content with the general characteristics of forhest pitch of nobility of which it was capable This is not the place for a co the principles of art which prevailed in early Egypt, we must do justice to those masters ere conteed that they produced works which are not to be surpassed in their way by the greatest portraits of yptian sculptor ceased to paint the eyes Even in the tiyptian custom in this particular was the same as the Greek, so far as statues in hard stone were concerned The great statue of Chephren is an instance In it the chisel has merely reproduced the contours of the eyelids and the salience of the eyeball No attehtness to the pupil In none of the royal statues that have come down to our time do we find any effort to produce this kind of illusion, either by the use of paint or by the insertion of naturally coloured substances

There is a statue at Boulak which may, perhaps, be preferred even to the scribe of the Louvre We have already alluded to it as the _Sheik-el-Beled_ (Fig 7, Vol I) In its present state (it is without either feet or base) it has no inscription but it is sometimes called Ra-em-ke, because that was the name of the person in whose tomb it was found It is of wood, and, with the exception of its lower members, is in marvellous preservation The eyes are similar to those of the scribe, and seem to be fixed upon the spectator while their owner advances upon him The type is very different fro The face is round and flat, and so is the trunk The sood humour of the expression and the _embonpoint_ of the person indicate a man well nourished and cohbours[182]

[182] Another wooden statue of equal merit as a work of art was found in the sa

Unfortunately there is nothing left of it but the head and the torso _Notice des principaux Monuments du Musee de Boulak_, No

493

[Illustration: FIG 176--Wooden panel frooin]

[Illustration: FIG 177--Limestone head, in the Louvre Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier]

This statue is dressed in a different fashi+on from those we have hitherto encountered The sheik has his hips covered with a kind of petticoat gathered into pleats in front His legs, torso, and arms are bare The last named are of separate pieces of wood, and one of them, the bent one, is made in two parts When the statue was first finished the joints were invisible The whole body was covered with fine linen, like a skin Upon this linen a thin layer of plaster was spread, by means of which, et, refine stick; the colours of nature were afterwards added by the brush Such figures as these have therefore come down to us in a condition which resembles their primitive state much less than that of the works in stone They have, so to speak, lost their epideruish the flesh froypte_ (_Antiquites_, vol v p

33) gives the details of a ood workes of the eyelids were outlined with red copper; a fine linen was stretched over the wood; over this there was a thin layer of stucco, upon which the face was painted in green

It would seem that the sculptor in wood often counted upon this final coat of stucco to perfect hisThere are in fact wooden statues which seehly blocked out by the chisel

There are three figures in the Louvre in which this character is very conspicuous The largest of the three is reproduced in our Fig

178[184] Acacia and sycamore wood is used for this kind of work[185]

[184] The figure in the Louvre is split deeply in several places, one of the fissures being down the middle of the face

This latter our artist has suppressed, so as to give the figure so of its ancient aspect These fissures are sure to appear in our huypt is absolutely necessary for the preservation of such works, which seem doomed to rapid destruction in our European museums