Torso of King Ramesses II
Culture: Egyptian
Period: New Kingdom
Dynasty: Dynasty 19
Date: ca. 1279-1213 B.C.
Medium: Quartzite
Dimensions:
h. 21 1/16 in. (53.5 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Gilbert M. Denman, Jr.
Object number: 91.80.125
Inscribed: On back pillar: "The mighty bull who is beloved of Maat, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt and the Lord of the Two Lands, User-maat-re Setep-en-re, the son of Re. . ."
On belt: "Ramses, beloved of Amun"
Horizontal cartouche, written left to right, on front of belt:
ra-ms-sw
Ramesses (II)
One column of text, written right to left, on back pillar:
<kA> nxt mry-mAat nsw-bity nb tAwy wsr-mAat-ra-stp-n-ra sA ra …
Strong <bull>, beloved of Maat, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Wesir-maat-ra Setep-en-ra, Son of Ra …
Additional information in curatorial file [S. Schellinger 2018]
Provenance: sold by Spink & Son, London, to Gilbert M. Denman, Jr. (1921-2004), San Antonio, 1965; Gilbert M. Denman, Jr., by gift to San Antonio Museum of Art, 1991
Published References
Spink advertisement, Apollo magazine (September 1965), p. vi.
C.A. Picon, Ancient Art from the Denman Collection, MB Winter 1987, p. 19
Dynasties: The Egyptian Royal Image in the New Kingdom (San Antonio Museum of Art, 1995), no. 36
H. Sourouzian, Catalogue de la statuaire royale de la XIXe dynastie, Bibliothèque d'étude 177 (Cairo: Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 2019), 140, no. 75.
Label Text
Ramesses II, son of Seti I and third monarch of the Nineteenth Dynasty, ruled over Egypt for more than sixty years. His reign was notable for its massive building projects, including those at the temples of Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, and the Ramesseum, his mortuary temple.
Closely resembling a statue of Ramesses II in the San Diego Museum of Art (42:62), this magnificent torso displays the same meticulous attention to detail and elegant sense of proportion. Particularly noteworthy here is the subtle modulation of the musculature of the torso, the intricate detail of the falcon-headed dagger tucked into the waistband of the kilt, and the carefully sculpted hieroglyphs.
The king is identified by his belt buckle that bears his name, "Ramesses," and by a portion of the royal titulary preserved on the backpillar, "The mighty bull who is beloved of Maat, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt and the Lord of the Two Lands, User-maat-re Setep-en-re, the son of Re. . ."
Artists of the Ramesside Period, like their predecessors of the late Eighteenth Dynasty, often chose hard stones with natural banding and occlusions, such as the quartzite used for this torso. While the inscriptions name Ramesses II as the owner of the torso, recent scholarship has also advanced the suggestion that it may have been carved for the earlier pharaoh Amenhotep III, a ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and then been re-carved or completed by the sculptors of Ramesses II for the latter king's use.
(Gallery Label, 8/2002).
Closely resembling a statue of Ramesses II in the San Diego Museum of Art (42:62), this magnificent torso displays the same meticulous attention to detail and elegant sense of proportion. Particularly noteworthy here is the subtle modulation of the musculature of the torso, the intricate detail of the falcon-headed dagger tucked into the waistband of the kilt, and the carefully sculpted hieroglyphs.
The king is identified by his belt buckle that bears his name, "Ramesses," and by a portion of the royal titulary preserved on the backpillar, "The mighty bull who is beloved of Maat, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt and the Lord of the Two Lands, User-maat-re Setep-en-re, the son of Re. . ."
Artists of the Ramesside Period, like their predecessors of the late Eighteenth Dynasty, often chose hard stones with natural banding and occlusions, such as the quartzite used for this torso. While the inscriptions name Ramesses II as the owner of the torso, recent scholarship has also advanced the suggestion that it may have been carved for the earlier pharaoh Amenhotep III, a ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and then been re-carved or completed by the sculptors of Ramesses II for the latter king's use.
(Gallery Label, 8/2002).
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
