Fragmentary Statuette of a Vizier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This statue represents a vizier, an official who had administrative and judicial responsibility for half the country. Around his neck he wears a cord whose ends are held in a sliding cartouche-shaped clasp that can be seen at the back. The vizier's seal hung from this cord but was typically concealed beneath the upper edge of his wrapped garment. Columns of inscription refer to the "beautiful light" and the "sole sun of the one who lives seeing him," language that signals the Amarna religion as clearly as the soft modeling of the body, and the natural curve of the arms express the period's aesthetic.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art