Statue of Metjetji
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It comes from a mastaba, a funerary complex for the elite of 3rd-millennium B.C.E. Egypt. The deceased was buried in the mastaba's underground chamber. Located above were the mastaba's chapel and a small room for a statue like this one. Priests-usually the deceased's close relatives-left food before the sculpture. The deceased's vital force-the ka-would leave the mummy, enter the statue and absorb the essence of the food. The spirit of the deceased could thereby continue life in the hereafter.
In all likelihood, the sculpture does not reflect Metjetji's actually appearance. He is portrayed as young and vigorous, as befits a vessel for his vital force. He probably died an older man.
The dryness of the desert and safety of the mastaba helped preserve this statue for 4,500 years.
Tomb of Metjetji, Sakkara, Egypt;
With Paul Mallon, New York, by 1951;
Purchased from Mallon by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1951.
“The Most Important Egyptian Wood Statue of the Old Kingdom,” The Illustrated London News (August 4, 1951): 196.
“A Remarkable Statue that Has Defied 4,500 Years,” Kansas City Star, October 7, 1951.
“Enriching U.S. Museums,” The Art News 50, no. 8 (December 1951): 35.
John Cooney, “The Wooden Statues Made for an Official of King Unas,” Bulletin (The Brooklyn Museum) 15, no. 1 (Fall 1953): 1, 2, fig. 1, 4, 17, 19, 21, 23.
William Stevenson Smith, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1958), 77, plate 54.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 15, 18.
John Cooney, “Art of the Ancient World,” Apollo, n.s., 130 (December 1972): 474-75, plate 1, fig. 1.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 19-20, 25.
Peter Kaplony, Studien zum Grab des Methethi (Bern: Abegg Stiftung, 1976), 55, 62-63, 68-70, no. 14.
William Stevenson Smith, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 139, fig. 135, 141.
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1988), 20-21, fig.2.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 110.
Peter Munro, “Bemerkungen zur Datierung MTTJ’S, zu seinen Statuen Brooklyn 51.1/Kansas City 51-1 und zu verwandten Rundbildern,” in Hommages à Jean Leclant, vol. 1, Études Pharaoniques, Bibliothèque d’Étude 106/1, ed. Catherine Berger, Gisèle Clerc, Nicolas Grimal, (Paris: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1994), 245-77.
Christine Ziegler, “Non-Royal Statuary” in Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), 71, no. 75.
Julia Harvey, Wooden Statues of the Old Kingdom: A Typological Study (Leiden: Brill-Styx, 2001), 65, 200-01.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 6, fig. 7.
