Artworks produced across this time period served a variety of functions—given as gifts to their gods as acts of worship, placed in tombs to aid the dead in the afterlife, and used in daily life. This highlights tour features a selection that showcases ancient Egyptian artists’ mastery of many media and forms, including stone sculpture, copper alloy statuettes, faience figurines, glass containers, and painted cartonnage mummy masks.
All of the works on view can be found in Gallery 50 and are listed in order of display. To learn more about each object, click on the artwork title.
Statuette of Re-Horakhty
Ancient Egyptian artisans used an array of metals and alloys to produce striking polychromatic metal sculpture. Although millennia have turned the once vibrant copper alloy statuette depicting the solar deity Re-Horakhty (Re-Horus of the Horizons) a deep green, evidence of its exquisite craftsmanship, including gilding on the kilt and contrasting inlaid metals on the wig and necklace, remain. Fine details—such as the tiny golden hieroglyphs on the god’s belt that spell out his name “Re-Horakhty, chief of the gods”—provide a glimpse of the statuette’s former brilliance, while a repair in the left ankle, likely made during antiquity, speak to the artwork’s enduring value.
Model of a River Boat
Crewed by 14 rowers and a lookout, this model boat provides a glimpse of life along the Nile nearly 3,500 years ago. The wooden river boat belongs to a long tradition of burying models in Egyptian tombs to provide their owners with access to vital goods and services in the afterlife. Each element of the boat—from the hull to the oars and even the crew—has been carefully rendered in miniature. In addition to providing life-giving water, the Nile was the main source of transportation in ancient Egypt, where boats could be rowed northward with the current or sailed southward with the prevailing winds.
Ostracon with a Drawing of a King
Drafted in red and then finished in black, this sketch of an Egyptian king is the oldest drawing in the Art Institute’s holdings. The image, drawn on a limestone flake, depicts an unknown pharaoh carrying the ram-headed standard of Amun-Re, the king of the gods. Some of the most skilled artists of the New Kingdom (about 1550–1069 BCE)—the men responsible for decorating the pharaohs’ tombs in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of Thebes (modern Luxor)—drew and wrote on potsherds and pieces of limestone like this one, producing objects which are known today as ostraca (singular ostracon).
Plaque Depicting a Quail Chick
The ancient Egyptians’ keen observations of the flora and fauna that populated their world are often reflected in their art. This remarkably detailed plaque depicts a fledgling quail—the hieroglyphic sign for the sound w. It is naturalistically rendered in carved relief as if drawn from life. Here the sculptor left opposite corners of the limestone plaque untouched as a testament to his skill in freeing the bird’s image from the flat limestone tablet. Although their intended function remains a mystery, relief plaques like this one are complete artworks in and of themselves, not fragments of larger carved scenes.
Kohl Container in the Shape of a Palm Column
This vibrant blue glass vessel with white and yellow details was produced using the core-forming technique during the late 18th Dynasty (about 1450 BCE), the period when the Egyptians first adopted glass-making technology. A luxury item, the container was designed to hold kohl—a black eye paint worn by both men and women throughout ancient Egyptian history. The container’s tall, slender shape is inspired by an architectural element: the palm-shaped column, which itself evokes palm trees indigenous to Egypt.
Statue of Shebenhor
Carved from basalt, this compact statue represents a man named Shebenhor seated on the ground with his knees drawn up in front of him. Egyptian sculptors used the wide variety of stones available in the Nile Valley and the surrounding deserts to produce statues of people, kings, and gods. These figures populated Egypt’s many temples and tombs, where they received offerings and were the focus of ritual actions. Egyptologists call this statue type a “block statue” because of its cube-like shape, which was favored by many high officials of this period in part for the ample space for inscription that it provides. Here the hieroglyphs on the front of Shebenhor’s kilt and the back pillar that he sits against identify him and his parents and record an offering formula that—when recited out loud—would provide him with sustenance for eternity.
Stela of Amenemhat and Hemet
This funerary stela commemorates the priest Amenemhat, whose title is God’s Father, and his wife, Hemet, providing them with the food and drink they will need for a comfortable afterlife. Along the top and right sides, sunk relief hieroglyphs filled with Egyptian blue pigment record a traditional offering formula meant to be recited by those who visit this monument. In contrast, shallow raised relief (where the background is cut away from the image) was used to render the central scene, which shows Amenemhat and Hemet standing in front of piles of offerings that are presented by another man (likely their son) named Amenemhat. As was standard for ancient Egyptian art, the limestone surface is vibrantly painted, providing additional nuance to the figures and symbols, such as the small owl hieroglyph that renders the second m sound in Amenemhat’s name.
Ushabti of Psamtek
This diminutive figurine, which the ancient Egyptians called a ushabti, is equipped with an agricultural pick and hoe for work in the afterlife. An excerpt from the Book of Going Forth by Day (also known as the Book of the Dead) inscribed in hieroglyphs on its surface instructs the ushabti to perform labor on behalf of its owner Psamtek, a man who lived around 550 BCE. During this period ushabtis were mass-produced in the thousands using molds, with hundreds (one for each day of the year) included in a single tomb. This particularly fine example made from Egyptian faience (a ceramic material composed of quartz, an alkali, lime, and a colorant) has a vibrant blue hue that carried connotations of rebirth.
Though this ushabti is off view, there are several similar objects on view in the gallery.
Funerary Mask
Designed to be placed over the head of a mummified person, this mask protected the face of its owner, whose identity is no longer known. The mask is made from cartonnage (here plaster layered over strips of linen textile) that was molded over a form, painted, and gilded. Across the forehead natural dark black curls of hair peek out from underneath a heavy wig. The wig’s blue hue and the gilded skin on the face of the mask allude to the deceased’s semi-divine state and to the Egyptian belief that gods and goddesses had bones of silver, skin of gold, and hair of lapis lazuli (a costly blue stone imported from the region of modern-day Afghanistan). A wedjat-eye (𓂀) amulet affixed to the center of the wig invokes the concept of wholeness, safeguarding the deceased in the afterlife.
Portrait of a Man Wearing an Ivy Wreath
Produced when Egypt was part of the Roman Empire, this portrait painted on a wood panel would have been secured over the face of its owner’s mummified body with linen wrappings, protecting the deceased’s face and providing an interface between him and those commemorating him through funerary rights. A gilded wreath with heart-shaped leaves rests in the dark, curly hair of the unnamed man, who is positioned facing the viewer with his left shoulder angled away. The use of this portraiture style and wax-based painting technique—which are both rooted in ancient Greek and Roman artistic practices—underscores Egypt’s cosmopolitan nature in the first centuries CE.
Coffin and Mummy of Paankhaenamun
Once placed inside a set of one to three nesting wooden coffins, this cartonnage case still envelops the mummified Doorkeeper in the Temple of Amun, Paankhaenamun. The exterior is painted with scenes and symbols that will aid Paankhaenamun on his journey after death. Positioned over the chest, the main scene depicts Paankhaenamun walking hand-in-hand with the falcon-headed god Horus, who raises his right arm to introduce the deceased to Osiris (ruler of the underworld) and his sisters, the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Atop the feet of the coffin, a winged scarab pushing a sun disk is oriented to the coffin’s face. This potent image represents Khepri, the morning form of the sun god, and references the sun’s daily journey of death and rebirth, which in turn evokes the deceased’s desire to be reborn into the afterlife.
Learn more
To explore our holdings of ancient Egyptian art in depth, visit our expansive online publication Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, where you’ll find articles, videos, and other resources.
