Egypt is the oldest continuously documented civilization on the African continent, and our collectio

Egypt is the oldest continuously documented civilization on the African continent, and our collection, begun in 1902, tells the story of its art from its earliest known origins until the Roman period. The galleries for this unparalleled collection have been reorganized and reinstalled to help tell this story.Characteristic forms of Egyptian art were developed and refined during the Old Kingdom (Dynasties 3-6, ca. 2675-2170 B.C.E). At that time, artists established naturalistic anatomical proportions, as well as poses for standing and seated gures, and statue compositions of family groups. They standardized the distinctive way of depicting the human form in ancient Egyptian relief and painting—with the head and body in profile, and one eye and both shoulders shown frontally.During the Third and Fourth Dynasties, kings and royal families were the main patrons of the arts. Largely created for their tombs, sculpture and relief represented them as idealized, broad-shouldered youths. More of officials and priests decorated their tombs under the expanding governmental administration and social realm of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties.One of the oldest known Egyptian representations of the mother and child, this statuette portrays Queen Ankhnes-meryre II who ruled on behalf of her son Pepy II—a small boy when he came to the throne. The queen draws on associations with the goddess Isis who raised her son Horus after her husband’s death and saw her son become legitimate king of Egypt. Low harvests and the exceedingly long reign of King Pepy II at the end of this dynasty contributed to the breakdown of central government, resulting in civil unrest. The art of the subsequent First Intermediate Period (circa 2130–2008 b.c.e.) shows lower quality and provincial trends.Visit our reorganized and refreshed Ancient Egyptian Art galleries to take in over 4,000 years of astonishing objects from this ancient multicultural society.Posted by Edward Bleiberg -- source link

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