Ra-wer
- 103
Energetic and powerful, Ra-wer strides forth bolt-upright, chest out, shoulders back; he steps directly in front of us, not turning left or right. His appearance reflects the sculpture's essentially religious function. Priests and relatives would leave food directly before it-thus its extreme frontal position. The ka-his vital life force-would temporarily enter the statue and absorb the essence of the nourishment: now his spirit could exist in the afterlife. The statue's vigorous appearance matches the nature of his ka.
This sculpture and others nearby are among the earliest in the Museum. They stand near the beginning of a long tradition of the human figure-especially the young and vigorous one-as the primary subject of Western art.
Tomb of Ra-wer, Giza, Egypt;
With Paul Mallon, Paris, by 1938;
Purchased from Paul Mallon by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1938.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 13.
John D. Cooney, “A Tentative Identification of Three Old Kingdom Sculptures,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 31 (December 1945): 54-56.
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), 17.
John Cooney, “Art of the Ancient World,” Apollo 96 (1972): 476.
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), 21.
Bertha Porter et al., Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings, vol. 3, Memphis, pt. 1, Abû Rawâsh to Abûsîr (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1974), 267-68.
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), 106, 110.
Kathleen M. Garland and Joe C. Rogers, “The disassembly and reassembly of an Egyptian limestone sculpture,” Studies in Conservation 40 (1995), 1-9.
Christiane Ziegler, “La dame Hetepheres,” in L’art égyptien au temps des pyramides, ed, Dorothea Arnold, Krzysztof Grzymski, and Christiane Ziegler, exh. cat. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999), 298.
Christiane Ziegler, “131. Lady Hetep-heres Standing,” in Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids, ed. Dorothea Arnold, Krzysztof Grzymski, and Christiane Ziegler (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), 376.
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.
