Relief Depicting a God

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Arts of Africa

Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE)

Egyptian

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.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Ancient Egyptian
Title: Relief Depicting a God
Place: Egypt (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 332 BCE–30 BCE
Medium: Limestone
Dimensions: 29.5 × 25.4 × 2.5 cm (11 5/8 × 10 × 1 in.)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase Fund
Reference Number: 1920.257
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/127867/manifest.json

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), p. 44-45 (ill.).
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 28.
Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra. Exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), pp. 22, 97, fig. 1-5, cat. 74.

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 154A, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, When the Greeks Ruled: Egypt After Alexander the Great, October 31, 2013 - July 27, 2014; traveled to New York City, NY, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, October 8, 2014 - January 4, 2015.

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

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.