Man with a Broad Collar and Kherep Sceptre
Unknown · Reign of Amenhotep III, c. 1388-1349 BC
A man stands in profile holding the kherep sceptre, a short baton with a flared end that was the badge of an official's authority. His wig is drawn in tight curls, a small beard sits on his chin, and a cone of perfumed fat rests on the top of his head. A broad collar in rows of colour lies on his chest and a bracelet circles his wrist. The colours, red ochre skin, black wig and white linen, remain strong on the mud plaster, and the outline is drawn with a sure, unbroken hand.
The fragment was cut from the walls of tomb number one hundred and eighty one at Khokha in the Theban necropolis, the shared tomb of the sculptors Nebamun and Ipuky, who worked for the court of Amenhotep the Third around thirteen seventy BC. That tomb is famous for the quality of its painting, and this figure of a guest or relative at the funeral banquet shows why. Removed from the wall in the past, the piece was given to the Louvre in two thousand and two and displayed beside the other Theban fragments in this room.
Did You Know? The white cone on the man's wig is scented fat that melted slowly in the heat of a banquet, perfuming him through the evening.
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