Artworks

Fragmentary statuette of a vizier in indurated limestone. The figure wears a high-waisted wrap-around garment, the hems edged with looped fringes. The straps round his neck cross over at the back and are threaded through a tubular bead adorned with a cartouche. His body is fleshy but he nonetheless has a finely delineated collar-bone. The front of his costume and the back pillar have columns of delicately carved hieroglyphs. These consists of two versions of prayers to the pharaoh Akhenaten in which the King is addressed as the incarnation of the sole god, Aten. The front reads 'Praise to your Ka, my perfect sun, may you shine for me every day, O Waenre, who creates...' The back reads 'Praise to your Ka, O Waenre, the one by the beholding of whom one lives. May you give strength (lit. 'flourishing') while I live seeing you and I...' In each case the name of the owner would have followed later. Defective as shown.

This exceedingly rare statuette is one of very few sculptures of non-royal highly important individuals to have survived from the Amarna period and is the only known statue of a vizier from Akhenaten's reign. The prayers are well-known as they adorn many of the main private tombs at el-Amarna. Waenre 'The Only One of Re', is none other than Akhenaten himself. The identity of the Vizier is tantalising; the most likely candidate is Nakht, also known as Nakht-pa-Aten, who had a house in Amarna and who had also begun the construction of a rock tomb there (No. 12), which, however, did not get beyond the carving of the façade and the beginning of the first room. Theoretically, but less likely, it could also be a vizier from Memphis, or even the Theban vizier Ramose (of TT 55) from the very beginning of Akhenaten's reign.

Provenance

Maurice Nahman collection, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, France. 3rd June 1953, lot 6
Larcade collection
Private collection Europe
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; acquired from Charles Ede in 2007, accession number 2007.363

Exhibitions

Exhibition at the Allard Pierson Museum 12 October 1984.

Publications

Published as lot 6 (pl. i) in Succession de M. Maurice Nahman....4-5 Juin 1953 (Auction held at the Hotel Drouot, Paris)
J. Vandier, La Statuaire Egyptienne Vol.III Les Grandes Epoques: La Statuaire (Paris, 1958), p.666
Egypte Eender en Anders (Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam, 1984) no.2
J. Malek et al. Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Relief and Paintings Vol VIII Part 2 (Oxford 1999) no.801-650-680
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v.66, no.2, 'Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2007–2008'
(Fall, 2008)