History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)Maspero, G. (Gaston)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)
Maspero, G. (Gaston)
Civilization, Ancient; Egypt -- History -- To 640 A.D.; History, Ancient; Middle East -- History
[Illustration: 041a.jpg YOUNG GIRL IN THE TURING MUSEUM]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Petrie.
[Illustration: 041b.jpg THE LADY NEHAI]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Mertens.
Enamelled eyes, according to a common custom, were inserted
in the sockets, but have disappeared.
The funerary sculptors had acquired a perfect mastery of the kind of
art needed for people of small means, and we find among the medley of
commonplace objects which encumber the tomb they decorated, examples of
artistic works of undoubted excellence, such as the ladies Naî and Tûî
now in the Louvre, the lady Nehaî now at Berlin, and the naked child at
Turin. The lady Tûî in her lifetime had been one of the singing-women of
Amon. She is clad in a tight-fitting robe, which accentuates the
contour of the breasts and hips without coarseness: her right arm falls
gracefully alongside her body, while her left, bent across her chest,
thrusts into her bosom a kind of magic whip, which was the sign of her
profession. The artist was not able to avoid a certain heaviness in the
treatment of her hair, and the careful execution of the whole work was
not without a degree of harshness, but by dint of scraping and polishing
the wood he succeeded in softening the outline, and removing from the
figure every sharp point. The lady Nehaî is smarter and more graceful,
in her close-fitting garment and her mantle thrown over the left elbow;
and the artist has given her a more alert pose and resolute air than we
find in the stiff carriage of her contemporary Tûî. The little girl in
the Turin Museum is a looser work, but where could one find a better
example of the lithe delicacy of the young Egyptian maiden of eight or
ten years old? We may see her counterpart to-day among the young Nubian
girls of the cataract, before they are obliged to wear clothes; there is
the same thin chest, the same undeveloped hips, the same meagre thighs,
and the same demeanour, at once innocent and audacious. Other statuettes
represent matrons, some in tight garments, and with their hair closely
confined, others without any garment whatever.
[Illustration: 043a.jpg a soldier]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Mertens.
[Illustration: 043b.jpg STATUE IN THE TURIN MUSEUM]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Petrie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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