
Collection Online as of February 5, 2023
Terracotta, originally painted
Overall: 38.4 x 9.2 cm (15 1/8 x 3 5/8 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1991.107
107 Egyptian
This statuette of a serving girl was likely intended to accompany the deceased in the afterlife.
This statuette of a young serving girl carrying a jar belongs to a select group of hand-modeled figurines usually dated to Dynasties 18 and 19. According to the conventions of Egyptian art, the girl's nudity and the sidelock of hair indicate her young age. No more than a dozen of these statuettes are known. Their distinctive features--slit-like eyes, exaggerated hips, triangular delineation of the legs, and finger-depression of the navel--suggest that all were made in the same workshop. Although their exact function remains unknown, it has been suggested that they magically served the deceased as an object in the tomb.