 (p. 348) "She turns the head of every man, all captivated by the sight of her" (1)
One of the more important examples of ancient Egyptian sculpture in wood to have been seen at auction in recent years is to be offered for sale with the Behague Collection (2) by Sotheby`s in Monaco on 5 December. Among the several museum-quality pieces which this collection boasts, none bears more eloquent testimony to the taste of its creator than the charming figure of a young girl here reproduced (Plates IX-X). A mere 18.4 cm in height, she is carved in dark wood (probably ebony) relieved by delicate touches of paint, and unadorned except for a detailed Nubian-style wig with distinctive sidelock held in place by a ribbon of gilded gesso. Her left arm is bent forward at the elbow, perhaps originally to hold a lotus-flower which is now lost, and she stands with her left foot slightly to the fore, attached by tenons to a rectangular base inscribed across the top in hieroglyphs with her name: Nebetia (Fig. 1).
Nebetia`s statuette has an impeccable pedigree, for it was discovered with five companion pieces in a tomb at Kom Medinet Ghurab (at the entrance to the Faiyum) in the summer of 1900. One of this group, inscribed for the chief of weavers, Teye, was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1941; a second and third, representing the ladies Mi and Tuty, were secured by the Brooklyn Museum in 1947 and 1954 respectively; whilst the fourth statuette, that of a songstress of Amun, Maia, is still in private hands. The fate of the fifth figure, which was fragmentary, remains uncertain.
To judge from the quality of the figures, and from the grave-goods said to have been found with them, the women depicted were closely connected with the royal court, perhaps as members of the king`s harim. Stylistically, and on the basis of associated inscriptional evidence, the burials within the Ghurab tomb can be dated to the later years of Amenophis III (ruled c. 1390-53 B.C.) and the early reign of Amenophis IV-Akhenaten (ruled c. 1353-36 B.C.). The assemblage thus provides crucial documentation for the final stages in the gradual transmission from a restrained, early eighteenth-dynasty formalism to the mannered realism of the Amarna court. And within the Ghurab group it is the Behague girl, with her elaborate wig, angular features and the firm if over-emphasized curves of her body, who anticipates most convincingly the deep sensuality which would come to dominate Amarna art and ultimately ensure its lasting appeal (3).
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For assistance given in preparing this note the writer would like to thank Biri Fay, J.R. Harris, Diana Magee, Jaromir Malek and Felicity Nicholson.
(1) The quotation is taken from the love songs of Papyrus Chester Beatty I, verso, first stanza, translated by William Kelly Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt. An Anthology of Stories, Instructions and Poetry, new edition, 1973, pp. 315-16.
(2) Martine Marie Pol de Behague was born in Paris in 1870, the eldest daughter of Comte Octave de Behague and his wife Laure de Haber. She was introduced to the art world by her sister`s father-in-law, the Marquis de Ganay, to the care of whose grandson, Hubert de Ganay, her collection passed in 1939. The collection itself was formed between 1890 and 1925, and includes material ranging in date from the Ancient world to medieval and Renaissance Europe.
(3) The Kom Medinet Ghurab tomb-group was published by Emile Chassinat under the title "Une tombe inviolee de la XVIIIe dynastie" in Bulletin de l`Institut francais d`Archeologie orientale, I, 1901, pp. 225-34, with pls I-III. No illustration of the fragmentary figure has appeared. The bibliography of the New York and Brooklyn pieces is extensive. For the lady Teye, cf. Ambrose Lansing, "An Eighteenth-dynasty lady", Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art I, no. 9, 1943, pp. 266-70, and William C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, II, 1959, pp. 266-67. For the figure of Mi, see Cyril Aldred, New Kingdom Art in Ancient Egypt, 1961, p. 91, 168-69, and, more recently, Roland Tefnin, "La dame Mi", Egypte eternelle. Chefs d`oeuvres du Brooklyn Museum, 1976, p. 76; for Tuty, John D. Cooney, "A royal favorite", The Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, XVII, no. 1, 1955, pp. 24-25, and id., "Two Egyptian ladies", Five Years of Collecting Egyptian Art 1951-1956, 1956, pp. 7-10. The statuette of Maia was illustrated in the sale catalogue of the Mutiaux Collection, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 9 May 1952, no. 22, when it passed into a private collection in Lyon. The Behague girl was included as item no. 42 in the catalogue of the exhibition Egypte-France, Musees des Arts decoratifs, Paris, October-November 1942. It remains essentially unpublished, though Chassinat`s photograph of the piece has occasionally been reproduced (e.g. in Gaston Maspero, Histoire generale de l`art. Egypte, 1912, p. 207). A brief discussion of Nebetia and other figures from the group is to be found in Jacques Vandier, Manuel d`Archeologie egyptienne, III. Les grands epoques. La statuaire, 1958; cf. index IV, p. 677.
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Plate IX Nebetia, Egyptian, c. 1350-45 B.C. Probably ebony, height 18.4 cm. From the collection of the Comtesse de Behague. To be sold by Sotheby's, Monaco, 5 December [1987]
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Plate X Rear view
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Fig. 1 Detail of the hieroglyphic inscription on the base
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