not lose sight, if we desire to judge soberly the real value of the two
works. I have heard archæologists, when comparing them, regret that the
scribe of Gizeh does not show the same abundance of carefully studied
anatomical detail as the scribe of the Louvre; that therein lies the
real inferiority of the first, whether it was that the sculptor was
less conversant with the anatomy of the human body than with that
of the face, or that time had pressed, and he had contented himself
with giving his subject the conventional body that for the most part
sufficed in funerary statues. The care, as I have pointed out, with
which the small details of the attitude are expressed shows that the
reproach is undeserved, and that the artist has worked to give a
portrait complete from top to toe, and not only to reproduce a head on
a conventional body. The roundness of the form preserves the appearance
of the original, and shows, realistically, the age the subject was at
the time of his death, or at least at the period of life at which his
relatives desired to have a portrait of him. In the best facsimile
something of the delicacy of the monument itself must be lost, and in
spite of the great care taken in engraving it, its original aspect is
not entirely preserved. I think, however, that in looking closely at it
there can still be seen in many places the artistic, supple workmanship
by which the chisel expressed the delicacy and vigour of the model.
The most vigorous fellah of our day, when young and in good health,
has apparently slender muscles that do not stand out: like those of
the porters of Boulaq, one of whom without aid moved a stone statue
of nearly the same height as himself, and yet had hands and calves
like those of a woman, that looked of slight strength and incapable of
continuous effort. The knotty and twisted excrescences to be seen on
the arms, back, or chest of our athletes were rarely found in Egyptians
of ancient race, at least in youth. The ancient sculptor rightly noted
that physiological trait of his people. He had a young man before him:
so he evolved from the limestone a young Egyptian body in which the
play of the muscles is hidden beneath the skin, and is only betrayed
by a number of touches manipulated with knowledge and discretion. If,
like his colleague who sculptured the Louvre scribe, he had had to
portray a person of ripe age, he would not have exerted himself to
bring out the flabbiness of the flesh and the heaviness of its folds,
to execute all the pleasant work of the chisel which so well reproduces
the depredations of age in a rich sedentary man of fifty. In short, he
worked differently because he had a different subject.
There is no sort of inscription on either statue to inform us
of the name and characteristics of its original, who must have
been a person of some importance: a large tomb invariably meant a
considerable fortune, or a high post in the administrative hierarchy
which compensated for mediocrity of fortune. It might also be that
Pharaoh, desiring to reward services rendered him by some one in his
_entourage_, granted him a statue, a stele, an entire tomb built by
the royal architects at the expense of the Treasury.[34] It is certain
that our anonymous scribe held high rank in his lifetime, but to what
Dynasty did he belong? He so closely resembles the scribe of the Louvre
that he was evidently his contemporary: he must then have lived at the
end of the Vth Dynasty, and we reach a similar result if we compare him
with the other statues preserved at Gizeh. It is of the style of the
statues of Ti and of Rânofir, especially of the last two. One of them,
which formerly was No. 975 in the Boulaq Museum, is full of dignified
feeling.[35] Rânofir is standing, his two arms pressed against his
body, one leg in advance, in the attitude of a prince who is looking at
his vassals march past him. Whoever has seen him cannot fail to observe
how much he resembles our new scribe. Firstly, the head-dress is the
same; they both have the head framed, so to speak, in a bell-mouthed
wig. The hairs or fibres of which it is made were gummed, as is the
case to-day with the hair of certain African tribes. The hair is
carefully smoothed on the forehead and the top of the head, and being
parted on the cranium, hangs down and forms a kind of dark case round
the face which accentuates the ruddy tint of the flesh. The modelling
of the torso, the muscling of the arms, are treated in the same way
in both statues, and the dignified expression which characterizes the
physiognomy of Rânofir relieves the somewhat commonplace features of
the new scribe. Those are all facts that are not to be noted in other
portraits of our personages. The seated statue that I first described
possesses the general aspect of the individual, and undoubtedly
represents him; but the technique and feeling differ, since it is
necessarily that of a different sculptor. It is the same with Rânofir.
The statue of him numbered 1049 in the Boulaq Museum lacks the high
dignity we admire in No. 975. It is so heavy, so expressionless,
that it almost seems to be another Egyptian. The difference in the
workmanship proves that two artists were commissioned to execute
statues of the same man. The identity of workmanship, on the other
hand, compels us to recognize the same hand in the statue No. 975 of
Rânofir and in that of our new scribe: the two works proceeded almost
at the same time from one studio.
[Illustration: STATUE OF RÂNOFIR.
Cairo Museum.]
It would be interesting to find out if, among the statues in the
museums, there are others that may be related to these and have a
common origin. I do not so far know any, but I ought to add to what
I have said the indication of a special sign by which they can be
distinguished. The Egyptians were accustomed to paint their statues
and bas-reliefs, and the colours in which they clothed them were more
varied, and more subject to change, than is generally recognized. We
are used to see only a red-brown tone for the flesh, and they certainly
employed it very often; they did not, however, employ that tone only,
and men’s faces are occasionally coloured in a very different way. The
colouring of statue No. 975 and of the new scribe differs from the
usual manner. That of statue No. 975 has grown paler since Rânofir
left his tomb and became exposed to the light, but that of the Gizeh
scribe is still fresh, and resembles as faithfully as possible the
yellow complexion bordering on red of the modern fellah. The greater
number of archæologists who occupy themselves with Egyptian art neglect
facts of this kind. During my stay in Egypt I have endeavoured to bring
them out, and it is in co-ordinating them systematically that I have
been able to verify the existence, either at Memphis itself or in the
ancient village of Saqqarah, of two principal studios of sculptors and
painters to which customers of the later periods of the Vth Dynasty
entrusted the task of decorating the tombs and carving the funerary
statues.
Each had its special style, its traditions, its models, from which it
did not willingly depart. Commissions were divided between them in
unequal proportions, according to whether it was a question of isolated
statues or of bas-reliefs. I do not remember observing sensible
differences of style in the pictures that cover the walls of the same
mastaba: for that kind of work application was made to one or the other
studio, and it alone undertook the commission. For the statues, on the
contrary, recourse was had to both at the same time: the task, thus
divided, was more quickly accomplished, and there was more chance that
it would be finished by the day of the funeral. I do not mean to state
that there were then only the two studios of which I speak: I think
I have found traces of several others, but they perhaps enjoyed less
vogue, or the chances of excavation have not so far been favourable to
them.
To sum up, we may say, without the risk of being taxed with
exaggeration, that the art of the Ancient Empire counts another
masterpiece. It was a gift of happy chance to M. de Morgan in his first
serious excavations as earnest of good fortune: it is of good augury
for the future, and, as he is not a man to let a chance slip once he
holds it, and since he has the material means and the money required
for methodical exploration, we may hope for further finds without long
delay.
VII
THE KNEELING SCRIBE
VTH DYNASTY
(_Boulaq Museum_)
If he had not been dead for 6,000 years, I should swear that I met
him six months ago in a little town of Upper Egypt. It was the same
commonplace round face, the same flattened nose, the same full mouth,
slightly contracted on the left by a foolish smile, the same banal
expressionless physiognomy: the costume alone was different and
prevented the illusion from being complete. The loin-cloth is no longer
in fashion, and neither is the large wig; except the fellahs when at
work, no one now goes about with bare legs and torso. Some follow
fairly closely the custom of Cairo, and wear the too small tarbouche,
the stiff stambouline, the European starched shirt, but without a
cravat, black or crude blue trousers, shoes with cloth gaiters. Others
keep to the turban, long gown, wide trousers, and red or yellow
morocco leather babouches. But if his clothes have changed since the
Vth Dynasty, his deportment has remained perceivably identical. The
modern secretary, after delivering his papers to his master, crosses
his hands over his chest or his stomach in the fashion of the ancient
scribe; he no longer kneels while waiting, but assumes the humblest
attitude imaginable, and if his costume did not hide it, we should
recognize the suppleness that characterizes the Boulaq statue in the
movement of his shoulders and spine. His chief finishes reading the
papers, affixes his seal to this one or that, writes a few lines across
another, and throws the sheets on the ground: the secretary picks them
up, and returns to his office without offence at the cavalier manner
in which his work is given back to him. Indeed, is it to be expected
that a moudir, a man receiving a large salary, would take the trouble
to stretch out his arm to meet the hand of a mere ill-paid employee?
In fact, he treats his subordinates as his superiors treat him; his
subordinates, in their turn, act in a similar way towards theirs, and
so things go on right down the ladder, and no one dreams of objecting.
[Illustration: KNEELING SCRIBE.
Cairo Museum.]
Our scribe was one of those to whom the papers were thrown more often
than to others. He occupied a somewhat low place in the hierarchy, and
no bond attached him to the great families of his period. If he is
kneeling, it is that the sculptor has represented him in one of his
ordinary attitudes during the hours of work; he has also drawn his
portrait with the fidelity and jovial good humour adopted by artists
in portraying scenes of everyday life. The man has just brought a
roll of papyrus or a tray laden with papers; kneeling in the approved
manner, the bust well-balanced on the hips, the hands crossed, the back
bowed, the head slightly bent, he waits until his master has finished
reading. Does he think? Scribes felt some secret apprehension when
appearing before their masters. The rod played a large part in the
discipline of the offices. An error in the addition of an account, a
word omitted in copying a letter, an instruction misunderstood, an
order awkwardly executed, and the blows fell. Few employees escaped
flogging. If they did not deserve it, it would be inflicted on
principle: “That young fellow requires a beating. He obeys when he is
flogged!”[36] The sculptor has admirably transferred to the stone the
expression of resigned uncertainty and sheepish gentleness with which
the routine of an entire life spent in service had endowed the model.
The mouth is smiling, for such is the demand of etiquette, but there
is no joy in the smile. The nose and cheeks grimace in unison with the
mouth. The two big enamel eyes, surrounded with bronze, have the fixed
expression of a man who is vaguely waiting, without looking attentively
at anything or concentrating his thought on a definite object. The
face lacks intelligence and vivacity. After all, the profession did
not exact great alertness of mind. The formulas of administration were
simple and of little variety, the arithmetic was not complicated; it
was possible to get on easily with memory and industry, and so, without
much trouble, to earn sufficient to purchase a good funerary statue.
Our statue was found at Saqqarah[37] in a tomb of somewhat mediocre
appearance. Neither the name nor filiation of the man informs us under
what king or Dynasty he vegetated; but in comparing him with the statue
of Rânofir[38] we are able to assign him his place in the series.
First, both our scribe and Rânofir wear a wig of a form somewhat rare
at that period; the hair, parted from the centre of the brow, is drawn
back in a mass behind the ears and hangs down straight round the neck.
Our scribe, instead of the red complexion usually attributed to men’s
faces, is painted light yellow, very like those of women. Rânofir shows
the same peculiarity, an unusual one under the Ancient Empire. I do
not think it could have been mere caprice on the part of the artist. A
scribe, forced to live always in his office as women do in their homes,
would have a less sunburnt skin than his colleagues who worked in the
open air: the yellow colour of the limestone would thus be a sort of
professional sign, and would correspond with a lighter complexion in
the original. The titles of Rânofir prove that he lived under the last
reigns of the Vth Dynasty,[39] and in placing the kneeling scribe
at the same period, we are sure of not being much in error. I have
preferred to base my opinions on purely archæological grounds, but I
think an examination of the style of the two statues would carry the
connection still farther: the way in which the neck is attached to the
shoulders, and particularly the way in which the hands are treated,
is almost identical in the two cases. I do not know if I am mistaken,
but I have almost persuaded myself that the statue of Rânofir and that
of the kneeling scribe come from the same studio, and are perhaps the
fruit of the same chisel. I do not despair of finding other monuments
of a similar origin, and of reconstituting in part the work of one of
the masters of which the tombs of Memphis have preserved the various
productions, but without preserving their names.
The execution is very careful: unfortunately the limestone in which the
scribe is cut was too soft, and it is worn away in places. The knees
have suffered most, and it is a great pity, for we can see by what
is left of them how careful the artist has been with the modelling.
The arms are not divided from the bust, the hands are heavy, the feet
long, but the play of the muscles of the chest and neck is well noted.
In short, it is an estimable work of a conscientious sculptor who
thoroughly understood his vocation.
VIII
PEHOURNOWRI
STATUETTE IN PAINTED LIMESTONE FOUND AT MEMPHIS
(_The Louvre_)
Mariette found the statuette by chance when searching the Serapeum.
It had formerly been taken from the pit in which it was shut up and
thrown amid the rubbish of the great sphinx avenue that leads to the
tomb of Apis. The individual was named Pehournowri; he was cousin
royal, and fulfilled functions that I do not know how to define.
Nothing in the inscription helps us to conjecture with what king he
claimed relationship, but its style proves that he lived under the Vth
Dynasty. That he was of mature age is indicated by the plenitude of
form, by the fine proportions and the benevolent and benign aspect.
A short wig, a necklace, a loin-cloth scarcely reaching the knees,
completes his costume. His statue is not one in front of which we
naturally pause when walking through a museum. I do not think that
during the thirty years it has been in the Louvre it has attracted the
attention of any one except experts in Egyptology. Not that it lacks
merit: the modelling is exact, the execution skillful and delicate, the
expression frank and successful, but the pose differs very slightly
from that which hundreds of other artists have given to hundreds of
other statues. The careless visitor who passes from one seated man to
a second, and then to many others, does not think of looking for the
details of execution that distinguish them. He thinks that when he has
seen one or two he has seen all, and departs with the idea that the
chief attribute of Egyptian art is monotony.
Egyptian sculptors did not greatly vary the pose of their sitters.
Sometimes they represented them standing and walking, one leg in
advance of the other, sometimes standing, but motionless, with the feet
together, sometimes sitting on a seat or a stone pedestal, sometimes
kneeling, more often crouching, the chin against the knees like the
fellahs of to-day, or the legs flat on the ground like the scribe of
the Louvre.[40] The details of arrangement and costume may be modified
_ad infinitum_, but the attitude is nearly always regulated by the
six types I have enumerated. Some modern critics attribute this fact
to the inexperience of the sculptors, others to the inflexibility of
certain hieratical rules. But having seen not only the few incomplete
pieces to be found in Europe, but also the monuments still existing in
Egypt, I cannot admit those reasons. Everywhere in the bas-reliefs of
the temples and tombs a multiplicity of gestures or attitudes are to
be seen which show to what point the artists could, when they pleased,
diversify the human figure: the peasant bends over the hoe, the joiner
leans over his bench, the scribe stoops over his paper, the dancers,
girls and men, twist and balance their bodies, the soldiers brandish
their lances or march in time, as naturally as possible. And the
sculptors even reproduced positions in their statues very different
from those we are accustomed to see at the Louvre: the kneeling woman
who is grinding her corn, the baker who is kneading the dough, the
slave who coats the amphora with pitch before pouring in the wine, the
crouching mourner of Boulaq,[41] are all composed and modelled with
a lightness of action and a perfection of expression that leaves no
doubt as to the skill of the artist. It is true that hieratical rules
existed, and no one will dispute that fact, but they were reserved for
matters of religion and for those alone. They exacted, for instance,
that Amon must always, in every case, have the attributes, costume, and
attitude proper to the god, but they in no wise ordered that all men
were to be confined to one of the five attitudes I have just described.
The freedom of composition to which the large historical pictures of
the temples or the domestic scenes of the tombs testify, does not agree
with what we are told concerning the inflexibility of the hieratical
rules.
[Illustration: PEHOURNOWRI.
The Louvre.]
I shall not now touch on the statues of kings or divinities: I shall
have an opportunity later of treating them at leisure. Those of private
individuals represent for the most part persons of rank, great nobles,
people of the court, officers, magistrates, priests, employees of
birth or fortune; they come from nearly all the cemeteries, and are
portraits of the man for whom the tomb was hollowed out or of people
of his house. The master stands in an attitude of command, or sits
like Pehournowri, and he could only have one or the other of those
attitudes. The tomb is, in fact, his private house, where he rests
from the fatigues of life, as he used to do in his terrestrial home.
A soldier when at home does not carry his arms, a magistrate does not
wear his robe: soldier or magistrate, the insignia of the profession
are laid aside when he returns home. Thus the master of the tomb
always wears his civil costume, and leaves the marks of his profession
at the door.
Then, also, the accessible part of his dwelling has a special
destination which regulates the pose of the statues: it is, in fact,
his reception-room, where on certain days the family assembled to
present the offerings to him, in more prosaic words, to dine with
him. Whether his statue was visible in one of the open chambers or
invisible in the _Serdâb_,[42] it was his substitute. It is sufficient
to look at the neighbouring bas-reliefs to discover what were the
official attitudes of the dead man in the tomb. He was present at
the preliminaries of the sacrifice, the sowing and the harvest, the
rearing of the cattle, fishing, hunting, the execution of crafts, and
he saw all the works carried out for the _eternal dwelling_: he was
then standing, one foot in advance, head erect, hands hanging down, or
armed with the staff of command. Elsewhere, one after the other, the
different courses of the meal are served him, cakes, wines, canonical
meats, fruits which he needs in the world of the dead: then he is
seated in an armchair alone or with his wife. The sculptor employed for
his statues the two positions he has in the paintings: standing, he
receives the homage of his vassals; seated, he takes part in the meal.
And in the same way the statues which embody the members of the family
and of the household have likewise the attitude suited to their rank
and occupation. The wife is sometimes standing, sometimes sitting on
the same seat as her husband, or on a separate one; sometimes, as in
life, crouching at his feet. The son wears the costume of childhood, if
the statue was carved while he was still a child, or the costume and
attitude of his office if he was an adult. The acting scribe crouches,
the roll spread on his knees, as if he was writing from dictation or
reading from an account-book.[43] The slave grinds the corn, the bakers
knead the dough, the cellarers pitch their amphoras, the mourners
lament and tear their hair as it was their duty to do in the world
above; each individual is occupied according to his condition. The
social hierarchy followed the Egyptian after death, and it regulated
the pose of the statue after, as it had regulated that of the model
before, death. Up to a certain point it is the same to-day, and he who
carves the statue of a printer is careful not to attribute to him the
action and costume of a miner or a sailor. These statues, shut up in
the tomb, formed a sort of tableau in which each person held for ever
the pose characteristic of his rank or his profession. The artist was
free to vary the detail and regulate the accessories according to his
fancy, but he could not change the general disposition without injuring
the utility of his work.
At bottom, it is with the statues of Ancient Egypt as with the pictures
of saints of the Italian schools. The painters had to treat their
subject on lines from which they could not depart without falsifying
or disfiguring it. Bring sixty or eighty St. Sebastians together
in a room: how many of those who saw them would escape the boredom
that infallibly results from constant repetition? When the tenth St.
Sebastian was reached only a few professional artists would not have
already gone away. I am supposing, too, that only choice pictures
had been collected in which the qualities of a master are easily
recognized. If, on the contrary, there had been collected at random
all the available St. Sebastians without first eliminating the bad
pictures, the finest St. Sebastians in the world, lost in the crowd,
would be likely to attract no more attention from the public than the
Crouching Scribe or the other masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture in
the Louvre. The hypothesis appears absurd, because no one will easily
admit that any one could have the idea of making such a collection. I
agree so far as modern or ancient works, the value of which is known,
are concerned; but Egyptian Museums have so far always been classified
as depôts of archæological objects, not as art galleries. Each statue
is a scribe, a god, a king; it is the scribe Hor of the XIXth Dynasty,
or the scribe Skhemka of the Vth, or the king Sovkhotpou, wearing
the head-dress of the pschent, and that is all. The trumpery scribes
and the scribes that emanate from the hands of a master are confused
under the same rubric, and no mark is placed to distinguish the good
from the bad. Pehournowri is a scribe, Ramke a second scribe, Rahotpou
a third scribe, just as the St. Sebastian of such or such a great
Italian master and the St. Sebastians of the Epinal pictures are two
St. Sebastians: the public which is not warned, and which has no more
interest in one scribe than in another, passes on without looking.
The impression of monotony is produced by the perpetual repetition
of the same types and by the method of classification adopted in the
museums. If it was decided to do for Egypt what has been done for
Greece and Rome, to separate the productions of art and the objects of
archæology, people’s opinion would be promptly modified. The impression
of monotony would not wholly disappear, because the number of types
studied by the Egyptian sculptors was not sufficiently numerous: it
would be lessened and would no longer blind the crowd to the real
beauty and perfection that reside in Egyptian sculpture.
IX
THE DWARF KHNOUMHOTPOU
(VTH OR VITH DYNASTY)
(_Boulaq Museum_)
The charming person who left us this statue is known, since the
Exhibition of 1878, by the name of the Superintendent of the Cooks;
his title in the inscription on the pedestal indicates a keeper of the
wardrobe. In his lifetime he doubtless enjoyed some notoriety, since he
had one of the fine tombs of Saqqarah for himself alone, but we know
nothing of his history. His name was Khnoumhotpou, a name later made
illustrious by a prince of Minieh under the XIIth Dynasty: his place of
burial proves that he was born at the end of the Vth or beginning of
the VIth Dynasty.