Menkaure and his Queen

I saw this sculpture when I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts before I learned in a classroom about Egyptian art. As I was visiting the museum with my family, I did not spend as much time in the Egyptian room as I would have liked, but the piece I studied for the longest amount of time was this sculpture, Menkaure and his Queen. Contrary to popular belief, most ancient Egyptian rulers were not pharaohs. The term pharaoh was not used until the New Kingdom (beginning 1550 B.C.E), and Menkaure was an Old Kingdom (beginning 2686 B.C.E) king. Menkaure’s depiction in this sculpture suggests his position.  As in all ancient Egyptian art depicting royalty, Menkaure is portrayed with a rigid stance and his body faces the front. Other signs of Menkaure’s royalty include his headdress and his false beard which are both famous Egyptian symbols of power. Despite his rigid stance Menkaure is demonstrating motion because his left foot is stepping forward. Menkaure is also shown idealistically, with a young face and a toned body. At first glance, it might seem as though the Queen is nude, but she is, in fact, wearing clothing. The clothes are snug against her body purposefully revealing her curves underneath. The Queen is also a point of interest because the Queen displays affection towards Menkaure by wrapping her right arm around him and by touching him with her left arm.  The statue is carved from slate, which was an expensive material at the time. The statue was created for Menkaure’s tomb so that he could use it in the afterlife. One reason that ancient Egyptian art is interesting is because it is not supposed to be unique. For over three thousand years the style of Egyptian art rarely varied. Menkaure and his Queen is a perfect example of what Egyptians wanted in their art. The artist uses a typical canon of proportions to ensure that each part of the figures’ bodies is the correct length. The artist also makes sure that the rigid king and his queen are idealized figures which appear to display the authority they have over Egypt.   Despite being more than five thousand years removed from the creation of this sculpture, I felt an immediate connection to Menkaure and his Queen when I first saw it even though I had not yet learned the rules of Egyptian art, and I did not yet understand that this sculpture and others like it hold an important place in art history. That connection is the power of art. Such a connection is only enhanced with knowledge which is the power of art history.