Relief Depicting a God

Description

One way Egyptian artists expressed the concept of immortality was by repeating artistic conventions that had been used for thousands of years. One of the oldest such traditions was the simplification of the human body, which was reduced to its fundamental, most recognizable shape. Here the face is in profile, but the eye and the chest are depicted frontally. While these formal conventions continued to be honored after the Greeks came to rule Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, the new kings also imposed their own taste. The soft flesh of the face and the small, rounded nose are drawn from naturalistic Greek sculpture and are reminiscent of artworks seen at the court of the Ptolemies in the new capital of Alexandria.

Provenance

Panayotis Kyticas, Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago through James Henry Breasted as agent, 1919.

Relief Depicting a God

Ancient Egyptian

Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE)

Accession Number

127867

Medium

Limestone

Dimensions

29.5 × 25.4 × 2.5 cm (11 5/8 × 10 × 1 in.)

Classification

relief

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Museum Purchase Fund