THE PORTRAIT OF A 12TH DYNASTY NOBLEMAN

Jack A. Josephson1 American University in Cairo

Rita E. Freed Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

We are pleased to dedicate this article to the exercise in art-historical analysis we trust will be distinguished Egyptologist Richard A. Fazzini, of special interest to Richard. chairman of the Department of Egyptian, Clas- While the holdings of museums in Egypt are sical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the continuously enhanced by excavation finds, in- Brooklyn Museum, and our good friend. Scholars stitutions in other countries, of necessity, must who have undertaken research at the unequaled rely on gifts or purchases to enrich their col- facilities of the museum, including the Wilbour lections. The diminishing availability of fine ob- Library, the Corpus of Late Egyptian Sculpture, jects with legitimate provenance makes meaning- and the superb collection itself, are greatly in- ful additions infrequent at best. The Museum of debted to Richard for his cooperation, patience, Fine Arts, Boston was fortunate in its recent ac- and good humor. No one could be more gen- quisition of a sensitively modeled Middle King- erous in sharing knowledge and exploring ideas. dom private head carved in a fine-grained red His command of Egyptological bibliography is quartzite (figs. 1–4).2 Although the museum is legendary, and we are among Richard’s many renowned for its splendid collection of Egyptian colleagues whose writings have benefited from antiquities, many excavated over a period of four his assistance. In this brief study, we endeavor decades in the early twentieth century, few of to articulate a plausible argument for the prove- its sites yielded significant Middle Kingdom ma- nance of a fragmentary statue with neither in- terial, particularly late 12th Dynasty sculpture. scription nor archaeological context, and to sug- When the quartzite head, along with the head of gest a name for its subject—a methodological a Middle Kingdom queen from a sphinx (fig. 5),3

1 We gratefully acknowledge the editing of this manu- 3 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 2002.609; quartzite, h. script by Magda Saleh. 27cm, w. 24cm, d. 22cm; Partial gift of Magda Saleh and 2 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 2003.244 (the Joseph- Jack A. Josephson in honor of Dr. Rita E. Freed, John F. Co- son Head); quartzite, h. 18.5cm, w. 24cm, d. 21cm; Partial gan, Jr. and Mary L. Cornille Chair of Art of the Ancient gift of Magda Saleh and Jack A. Josephson and museum World, and museum purchase with funds from the Flo- purchase with funds donated by the Florence E. and Ho- rence E. and Horace L. Mayer Fund, Marilyn M. Simp- race L. Mayer Funds, Marilyn M. Simpson Fund, Egyp- son Fund, Norma Jean and Stanford Calderwood Discre- tian Curator’s Fund, Norma Jean and Stanford Calder- tionary Fund, Mr. and Mrs. James M. Vaughn, Jr., The wood Discretionary Fund, Otis Norcross Fund, Helen and Vaughn Foundation Fund, Egyptian Deaccession Fund, Mr. Alice Colburn Fund, Norma Jean Calderwood Acquisition and Mrs. John H. Valentine, Jane Marsland and Judith Fund, William E. Nickerson Fund, Frederick Brown Fund, A. Marsland Fund, Ernest Kahn Fund, Susan Cornelia Arthur Tracy Cabot Fund, Elizabeth Marie Paramino Fund Warren Fund, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, Mary L. Smith in memory of Boston Sculptor John F. Paramino, Morris Fund, John Wheelock Elliot and John Morse Elliot Fund, and Louise Rosenthal Fund, Arthur Mason Knapp Fund, Mary E. Moore Gift, Mrs. James Evans Ladd, Frank Jackson Miguel and Barbara de Bragança Fund, John Wheelock El- and Nancy McMahon, Alice M. Bartlett Fund, Benjamin liot and John Morse Elliot Fund, Walter and Celia Gilbert Pierce Cheney Donation, Frank M. and Mary T.B. Ferrin Acquisition Fund, Brian J. Brille Acquisition Fund, Barbara Fund, Meg Holmes Robbins, Mr. and Mrs. Mark R. Gold- W. and Joanne A. Herman Fund, and by exchange from an weitz, Allen and Elizabeth R. Mottur, Barbara W. and anonymous gift; see Dietrich Wildung, ed., Ägypten 2000 v. Joanne A. Herman, Clark and Jane Hinkley, Walter and Chr.: Die Geburt des Individuums (Munich: Hirmer, 2000), 167, CeliaGilbert,Mr.andMrs.GorhamL.Cross,Mr.and no. 90. Mrs. Miguel de Bragança, Honey Scheidt, Mr. and Mrs. 142 jack a. josephson and rita e. freed became available, the museum seized the oppor- of muscle is visible above the tightly set mouth, tunity to add to its holdings two indisputable whose curvilinear, sensuous lips taper into thin masterpieces from a period noted for its excep- straight lines. The rounded eyeballs protrude no- tional sculpture. ticeably, causing the man to appear goitrous. The The red quartzite head appeared on the art hooded upper eyelids, surmounted by barely dis- market prior to 1947, the year it was photo- cernible natural eyebrows, are thickly rimmed. A graphed by John Cooney, then curator of the slight swelling on the forehead over the slender, Egyptian collection at the Brooklyn Museum, on aquiline nose marks its root. Apart from this sin- the premises of Khawam Brothers, an antiquities gularity, the forehead is smooth. Fleshy pouches dealership in Cairo.4 By 1951,itwasintheKoffler below the eyes and prominent, organically carved collection in Lucerne, remaining there until its nasal labial folds create signs of age and define purchase by a New York collector in 1984.Prior the boundaries of the cheeks. The pronounced to its appearance on the art market, the sculpture high cheek bones, extending almost to the tem- was coated with shellac, presumably to disguise ples, wrap around the upper sides of the face. a repair to the wig, probably damaged by the This unusual sculptural device served to avoid blow that severed the head from the body. It the customary discontinuity that resulted from may have also caused minor chipping on the left the method of drawing the three aspects of the eyelid, the tip of the nose, and the chin. The face, front and two profiles, on a block of stone shellac sealed foreign material, identified by a as a guide to carving. The subtle modeling adds scanning electron microscope as soil accretions, strong elements of personality and expressiveness into the pores of the stone,5 and altered the color to this lifelike representation, clearly the work of of the quartzite from its original reddish hue to a master sculptor. an unnatural, slightly orange tint. As a result, Because of its individualized traits, the head the surface of the stone had assumed an artificial may be described as a portrait, used here in the luster. This resin was removed by the Department modern sense as a recognizable likeness of a sub- of Objects Conservation of the museum. The use ject.8 In the absence of an inscription or archae- of a red stone for sculpture is noteworthy. In ological context, information regarding its date, both 2-and3-dimensional representations, red origin, and identity can only be inferred from was the usual painted skin color for males in art-historical evidence, and more specifically by ancient Egypt, and in all likelihood red stone had comparison to inscribed and excavated examples. special meaning when used for sculpture in the While we attempt to propose a name for the man round, perhaps obviating the need for painting portrayed, any such suggestion is of course specu- the figure.6 Quartzite also had particular worth to lative. the Egyptians, who referred to it as biat,“anoble The features of the Boston head unmistakably stone,” associated with the sun.7 parallel representations of Senusret III, whose Asmoothbagwig,whichpushestheover- reign was the dating first suggested for it in size, sketchily rendered ears forward, covers the print by Dietrich Wildung,9 and which we, among top of the head. Underpinned by a firm, square others, subscribe to. In seeking a possible origin, chin, the facial features are intact, apart from we refer to Felicitas Polz’s exhaustive treatment the minor damage noted above. A distinct line of the statuary of Senusret III, in which she

G. Arnold Haynes and Margaret J. Faulkner; see Dietrich 4 From the archives of the Brooklyn Museum. Wildung, Sesostris und Amenemhet: Ägypten im Mittleren Reich 5 Department of Objects Conservation report, dated (Munich: Hirmer, 1984), 88,fig.75,inwhichtheheadis Sept. 13, 2003, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. described as having been found in Matariya (Heliopolis); 6 See Melinda Hartwig, “Painting,” in The Oxford Ency- Biri Fay, The Louvre Sphinx and Royal Sculpture from the Reign of clopedia of Ancient Egypt 3, ed. Donald B. Redford (New York: Amenemhat II (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1996), 64,pl.84f.; Oxford University Press, 2001), 1. Richard A. Fazzini, “Head of a female sphinx,” in Mistress 7 See Arielle P. Kozloff andBetsyM.BryanwithLaw- of the House, Mistress of Heaven, ed. Anne Capel and Glenn rence M. Berman, Egypt’s Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and his Markoe (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996), 107–108, World (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992), 138ff. no. 41; Christiane Ziegler, “Une Nouvelle Statue Royale du 8 For an excursus discussing this often vexatious word, Moyen Empire au Musée du Louvre: La Reine Khénémet- see Jack Josephson, Paul O’Rourke, and Richard Fazz- Nefer-Hedjet-Ouret,” Monuments et Mémoires de la Foundation ini, “The Doha Head: A Late Period Egyptian Portrait,” Eugène Piot (Paris: Documentation français, 2001), 21,n.24; MDAIK 61 (2005): 219–241. Rita E. Freed and Jack A. Josephson, “A Middle Kingdom 9 See Wildung, Ägypten, 167. Masterwork: Boston 2002.609,” forthcoming.