Museum of Art AMONG THE ARTWORKS EXHIBITED in the 1999-2000 exhibition "'Only the Best': Mas terpieces of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon" was the richly inlaid bronze torso of King Pedubaste (ca. 818-793 b.c.) (Figures 1-3). This still spectacular fragment is one of the great monuments of the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, a politi cally decentralized and obscure era marked, nonethe less, by a high level of inventiveness and artistry in metalwork. Close visual and technical examination of the figure at the time of the exhibition, and subsequently at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, laid the groundwork for this study, in which several points of historical, technical, and artistic interest have been pursued in depth.1 Investigation of the modern history of the statue is suggestive with regard to its origin, which in turn has further implications for the much-discussed question of the power base of the historical King Pedubaste. Technical description of the figure, incor porating insights gained from elemental, radio graphic, metallographic, and p?trographie analyses, contributes to a growing body of scientific studies of ancient Egyptian metal statuary. It also provides evi dence regarding casting technology and finishing processes, as well as sophisticated alloying practices and artificial patinations. The combined results of the technical and art historical studies permit at least par tial reconstruction of the original and its figurai deco ration, along with an appraisal of the remarkable visual impact of the statue, both confirming and extending the findings of other recent studies of large Third Intermediate Period bronze statuary. ? The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2005 Metropolitan Museum Journal 40 The notes for this article begin on page 186. Modern history of the bronze and its relation to archaeological provenance The torso fragment, Gulbenkian Museum inventory number 52, comprises a section from the midchest to knee measuring twenty-seven centimeters of an elabo rately decorated, costumed, and inscribed statue of King Pedubaste that was probably originally seventy four to seventy-eight centimeters high.2 Before enter ing the collection of Calouste Gulbenkian (1869-1955) and thence coming to his museum in Lisbon, the statue had been in the collection of Count Grigory Sergeievich Stroganoff (1829-1910)^ member of the famous Russ ian family of connoisseurs and collectors.3 How Stroganoff acquired the work is not recorded and cannot now be fully reconstructed, although a brief sketch of his life and collecting activities as they relate to Pedubaste and Egyptian art and archaeology, and a careful examination of the context surrounding the earliest mention of the statue, are germane. The highly cosmopolitan Stroganoff and his family trav eled extensively from the early 1860s on, maintaining Rome as their winter home.4 They certainly went to Egypt in 1879-80, although the Pedubaste fragment is not included among the antiquities specifically listed as purchased on that trip, and there may well have b...
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