This statuette represents Re-Horakhty, one of the great solar gods, as a human with a falcon head. His body is that of a man with broad shoulders, pronounced pectoral muscles, bulging biceps, a trim waist, narrow hips, small, rounded buttocks, and long, slender legs with pronounced shins. His falcon head emerges from a tripartite wig that frames his beak and eyes. His eyes are marked with the falcon’s characteristic vertical mark and the feathering pattern behind. Human ears are placed high up on his head. A hole in the top of Re-Horakhty’s head allowed for the attachment of his emblem—a sun disk—that was probably covered with gold to make it radiant (fig. 1).^[1] This type of mixed representation of a human body with an animal head was believed to express the humanity of the gods and also the Egyptians’ belief that humans were created by the gods—to some extent in their own image, down to shared attributes like a navel and nipples.1

The figure is beautifully and carefully detailed. The god’s fingernails and toenails are outlined and indented, and the nails on his left foot retain their gilt covering. The strands of his pectoral—made of five rows of beads, the last teardrop shaped, that fill the area between the lappets of his wig—are overlaid in gold, as are the pleats of his shendyt kilt with its knotted belt, a style worn primarily by gods and the king.^[2] His name and epithet, “Re-Horakhty, Chief of the Gods,” on his belt are also in gold (fig. 2). The belt has a lozenge pattern that represents a decorative textile. The use of gilt on the wig would have created a pattern that alternated the dark of the copper alloy with gold, in imitation of dark-blue-and-gold-striped wig covers (see cats. 107–9 for similar wig covers that retain their color). His left ankle was broken and repaired with a butterfly-shaped insert in antiquity (fig. 3). Tenons at the bottom of both feet allowed the statuette to be attached to a base (now lost).2

The god is shown striding forward with his left foot advanced, arms at his sides, and his hands clenched with the thumbs pointing downward. Holes through his fists indicate that he originally held some sort of scepter. The left-foot-advanced position was established in Egyptian art with the earliest human representations in both two and three dimensions. With a few exceptions, it was standard for images of men (and even animals), where it expressed their vitality and active nature. In contrast, most females were shown with their feet together or the left foot only slightly advanced, an expression of their more passive nature. The left-foot-forward position is related to the relationship between art and hieroglyphs, the latter of which, after all, are small-scale works of art. The dominant orientation of hieroglyphs is rightward facing.^[3] Rightward-facing stone statues, on which the legs are usually engaged with the block of stone, provide the best explanation for the stance. On such a statue, advancing the left leg ensured that it was visible in front of the right leg. If the right leg were to be advanced, the left leg would be invisible, masked by the stone that engaged the lower part of the statue.^[4] One of the foremost principles of Egyptian art was that all essential elements of a subject had to be depicted; hence, it was necessary to ensure that both legs were visible.^[5]3

This heavy, solid, copper alloy statuette was cast by the lost-wax method (see About Copper Alloy Statuettes). Seams at the top of the shoulders indicate that it was made in several pieces that were joined with solder.4

Considering its size and the expense of its materials, it seems unlikely that this statuette was commissioned by an individual to be placed in a temple deposit where it would not have been seen. Rather, it may have been displayed in a temple or shrine as a recipient of offerings.5

Re-Horakhty

Re or Re-Horakhty (Re-Horus-of-the-Horizon), another form of the falcon-headed sun god Re, was one of the most important members of the Egyptian pantheon. He represented the life-giving power of the sun, especially its ability to rise, or be reborn, each morning—a metaphor for eternal rebirth. As a symbol of eternity, he had a special association with the pharaoh, expressed by the king’s title Son of Re that became a part of the royal titulary in Dynasty 4. The pharaoh was also described in solar terms as the Living Image of Re and the Horizon Dweller Who Brightens the Earth.6

Although Re-Horakhty was revered throughout Egypt, his special cult center was at Heliopolis (city of the sun), a suburb of present-day Cairo. One of the god’s cult symbols was the benben, an obelisk-shaped stone that represented the sun at its apex with its rays descending to earth. The benben was an architectural element of most temples in the form of obelisks that either flanked entrances or formed the roof of the shrine that held the statue of the god in the sanctuary of the temple. In Dynasty 5, special solar temples topped by an enormous obelisk were built in honor of the god. Pyramids represent the apex of the benben.
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Additional Views of Cat. 24

For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.8

Provenance

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1894.9

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 101, 102 (ill.).10

Günther Roeder, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1956), 9, 80, pl. 74a.11

Karen B. Alexander, The Galleries of Ancient Art, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman: A Guide to the Collection, brochure (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1994).12

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 24 (ill.), 26, no. 8.13

Emily Teeter, Karen B. Alexander, and Mary Greuel, Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World: Egypt, Greece, Italy, with contributions by Edmund Barry Gaither et al., teacher manual (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2001), 15, image 2; 16–17.14

Celia Hilliard, “‘The Prime Mover’: Charles L. Hutchinson and the Making of the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 36, no. 1 (2010): 63, fig. 20.15

Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer, ed., Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt, exh. cat. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012), cat. 3, 135 (ill.), 136.16

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 20, fig. 1-2; 101, no. 103.17

Heike C. Schmidt, “Die Rolle der Gebrüder Brugsch im ägyptischen Antikenhandel,” in Mosse im Museum: Die Stiftungstätigkeit des Berliner Verlegers Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920) für das Ägyptische Museum Berlin, ed. Jana Helmbold-Doyé and Thomas L. Gertzen (Berlin: Hentrich and Hentrich, 2017), 49, 56n48.
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