A large wooden figure of an offering bearer from ancient Egypt. The figure stands with the proper left leg extended slightly ahead of the other, in traditional striding pose. She sports a high-waisted dress or skirt, which is tied under the breasts with deep greenish-blue ribbons, outlined finely in ochre. She wears a wide wesekh collar composed of triangular, spherical, and cylindrical beads around her neck. The long tripartite wig, painted a rich dark black, falls to the top of her chest and down her back. The wide nose and mouth, with thick, slightly upturned lips, are carved out of the surface of the face, while the large eyes and eyebrows are painted on in black. The eyes are wide and almond-shaped, and outlined with long cosmetic lines which extend towards the large, round ears on either side of the face, which are also outlined in ochre paint. It is very rare for such extensive and vibrant polychrome painting to survive from antiquity. Rectangular sockets in each of the shoulders reveal how the arms would have originally been affixed to the body.

Wooden figures were produced throughout ancient Egyptian history, but the majority extant today were made during the Middle Kingdom. During this period, wooden figures were carved with increasing variety and personalisation. Models such as this may have been found in the burial chambers of tombs, often orientated to the cardinal directions and the coffin, as well as on top of the coffin itself. The striding pose of the figure suggests that it would have originally been one of a number of figures of offering bearers. The names of places would often be written beside these figures, identifying them as the personifications of estates that would supply the owner throughout their afterlife. A pair of large, intricately painted female offering bearers were discovered in a hidden chamber within the tomb of the Twelfth Dynasty royal chief steward Meketre, during the 1920 excavations led by Herbert Winlock (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 20.3.7, and the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 46725).

Image: Wooden offering figure in the hidden chamber of Meketre’s tomb. Thebes, 18 March 1920.

Published

Collection Madeleine Rousseau, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 23 May 1962, Lot 27, pl. 1.

Provenance

Previously on the French art market, based on wooden base by the maker Kichizô Inagaki (1876-1951), prior to 1951, with old inventory number in ink on the reverse of the statue, reading ‘no. 2602’, and old inventory label on base ‘No. 201 CENDDD’.
Private Collection of Madeleine Rousseau (1895-1980), Paris, by at least 1962.
Private Collection, France.
ALR: S00260439, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database.

Note on the Provenance

The bust is mounted in a wooden base stamped with the maker’s mark of renowned artisan and cabinet and stand maker Kichizô Inagaki (1876-1951) on the bottom. Inagaki was a prizewinning artisan born in Murakami, Japan, who later moved to Paris in 1906. By 1911 or 1912, he had begun to create mounts for dealers, including Joseph Brummer. This is presumably when he will have constructed the base for this bust. While he was employed by Joseph Brummer, he met Rodin, who was looking for someone capable of restoring pieces from his collection and Inagaki seemed to him ideal for that job. In no time the whole of Paris, including Paul Guillaume, Louis Carré, Béla Hei, started to use the services of Kichizô Inagaki. He continued to work for various antiquities dealers including Dikran Kelekian, Joseph Altounian, and Charles Ratton, to name a few, creating mounts for objects in private collections and on the art market.

Madeleine Rousseau (1895-1980) was born in Troyes, France, in 1895. In 1913, she went to Paris to continue her graduate studies in painting, and she worked amongst the artistic milieu of the city in the 1920s – she attended the studio of Edouard Mac’Avoy, met Jean Bazaine and Marcel Gromaire, and was involved in several collective exhibitions. She used her talent to record her already established collection, when she did not have photographs of the works. At the age of 36, Rousseau entered the École du Louvre to study art history. After she graduated, Rousseau taught courses on twentieth-century French art at the British Institute of the University of Paris, and worked as an attaché at the Musée du Luxembourg and as a lecturer at the Musées Nationaux. Following the Second World War, Rousseau joined APAM – l’Association popular des amis des musées – for whom she gave lectures and edited their journal, Le Musée Vivant. The journal addressed art from all different cultures and periods, and advocated for an expanded approach to African arts in particular. She was a member of the UNESCO Council for Education and Culture from 1956 to 1960. In 1963, Rousseau taught art in Egypt, a period she recorded in her personal diaries. She rose to become a prominent art historian, museologist and critic known for her significant contributions to the study of non-Western art and the musées vivantes or ‘living museum’ movement. She retired to the small town of Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert in 1977.

Rousseau built her expansive collection of African and other non-European arts through her network of connections from APAM and the Musée de l’Homme. She collaborated and traded with dealers Charles Ratton and Louis Carré. Her apartment in Paris, which she owned until 1977, was transformed in a small-scale salon, where visiting artists and intellectuals would gather. Among others, she hosted Aimé Césaire, Sékou Touré, Léopold Sendar Senghor, and Cheikh Anta Diop. By the start of the 1960s, her collection was noted for both its quantity and the remarkable quality of her pieces. Rousseau began to sell off her numismatic collection, featuring coins from Egypt, India, and Asia, and refocus her collection more specifically on the art of sub-Saharan Africa. In 1966, her collection of African art was exhibited at the Musée de Saint-Rambert in Saint-Rambert-sur-Loire, provoking both interest and outrage in the small French town. Following the exhibition, Rousseau donated part of her collection to the museum in 1967, and in 1977 she retired to Saint-Rambert, where she lived until her death in 1980. Speaking of her collection, Rousseau told the press that for her, ‘Freedom is the truth, which authentic art reveals to us’.

Statue of a Female Offering Bearer