Royal Head

Place CreatedEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodNew Kingdom, Late Dynasty 18 - Early Dynasty 19

Date1390-1279 BCE

MediumRed granite

Credit LineEgyptian Purchase Fund

Dimensions6 x 5 x 5 1/2" (15.2 x 12.7 x 14 cm)

Object number2003.056.001

Label TextWhile most depictions of pharaohs were portraits, although usually quite idealizing, there are periods where the distinction between successive rulers can be blurred. This image dates to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty or the beginning of the Ramesside era and has been variously attributed to Horemheb or Sety I. The almond-shaped eyes and small, smiling mouth are holdovers from the Amarna style, which lasted for many years after the end of Akhenaten's religious and artistic experiments. This head shows the pharaoh wearing the royal nemes headcloth. The extended break at the back of the head suggests that this figure was part of a larger composition and perhaps once stood in front of a larger image, such as a sphinx or a figure of the god Amun. The original sculpture, carved in a darkly speckled Aswan granite would have been a singular masterpiece.
Exhibition HistoryDynasties: The Egyptian Royal Image in the New Kingdom, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, January 6 - April 9, 1995
From Pharaohs to Emperors: New Egyptian and Classical Antiquities at Emory, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 14 - April 2, 2006
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, 2006 - Present
Published ReferencesChristie's New York, Fine Antiquities and Tribal Art and an Important Suite of 20th Century Egyptian Furniture (December 13, 1980), 55, lot 207.
Helen-Louise Seggerman, "Collections of Things Past," Town & Country (December 1990): 221.
Gerry D. Scott III, "Dynasties: The Egyptian Royal Image in the New Kingdom," Varia Aegyptiaca 10 (1995): 47, number 33.
San Antonio Museum of Art, "Dynasties: The Egyptian Royal Image in the New Kingdom," Museum Pamphlet (January 6 - April 9, 1995), cover image, number 33.
MCCM Newsletter, March - May, 2004.
Peter Lacovara and Jasper Gaunt, "From Pharaohs to Emperors: Egyptian, Near Eastern & Classical Antiquities at Emory," Minerva 17 (January/February 2006): 9-16.
Karen M. Bryson, "An Egyptian Royal Portrait Head in the Collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University," (MA thesis, Georgia State University, 2008).
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 19.
Melinda Hartwig, A Companion to Ancient Egyptian Art (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015) 207, figure 11.8.

ProvenanceEx coll. Rev. Theodore Pitcairn (1893-1973), Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. By bequest to The Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma, Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. With Christie's New York, December 13, 1980, lot 207. Ex coll. Jack A. Josephson, New York, New York, purchased from Gawain McKinley (1945-1996), London and New York, 1983. Purchased by MCCM from Josephson.

Status

On view

Collections