Let us skip a century and a half, and transport ourselves to the
last years of the Dynasty: they have bequeathed us several pieces
that must be related to a common origin: the fine woman’s head that
Mariette called Taia, the Khonsou and the Amon of Harmhâbi,[50] the
Toutânoukhamanou, and perhaps also the statuette in petrified wood
extracted from the _favissa_ by Legrain in 1905. Is not a portrait
of Aî to be recognized there? It is broadly treated despite its
restricted dimensions, but the unfortunate material employed did not
allow the artist to go far as regards execution: the likeness remains
uncertain. But it preserves the mark of the school, and various details
in the nose, mouth, the cut of the eyes, the inset of the eyebrows,
lead me to think that we shall probably be right in attributing
it to the group of artists to whom we owe the Khonsou and the
Toutânoukhamanou. I am certain that they come from the same hand, and
an instant’s examination will prove it. The two figures might almost be
superimposed: the eye is hollowed out in an identical amount in both,
the attachment of the nose is similar, and so is the way of slightly
inflating the nostrils and of dilating the middle of the lips and
compressing the corners. The physiognomy has something ailing in it,
but the indications of ill-health, the obliquity and bruised appearance
of the eyes, the thinness of the cheeks and neck, the prominence of
the shoulder-bones, are more perceptible in the Khonsou than in the
Toutânoukhamanou; we might say that the model of the Khonsou, if it
is not Toutânoukhamanou at a more advanced age, had a more visible
tendency to consumption. A doctor should study them both: he alone
could decide, if, as I imagine, they represent a sick man, and possibly
he could, according to the external aspect of the subject, establish
the exact diagnosis of the disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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