Servant statuette

This wooden figure depicting a man carrying a sack imitates a servant statuette, a type of funerary equipment that served to depict a range of different working activities. These small statues were typical of the elite burials from the late Old Kingdom to the early Middle Kingdom This piece is, however, fake, produced in modern times, belonging to a group of four servant statues all originating from the same workshop and purchased as one lot. His slightly tout body is painted brick red; he wears a white apron; his round head is covered with a white cloth tied in the back. He holds the light brown sack on his shoulder with his raised left arm bent at the elbow, while he is balancing with his outstretched, disproportionately long right arm. In a rather unusual way, the figure is portrayed in the moment of going upstairs: the weight is still placed on his right foot while his left is just put on the next step. Although models of granary or bakery sometimes show figures with sacks on a stair, their posture is normally static: the legs are either closed or in a striding position, but both feet rest on the same step.
Forged servant statues regularly appear in the art market. Their doll-like, often clumsy appearance makes them attractive, charming artefacts that are easy to forge at a low cost but sell extremely well. A group of four figures in the Egyptian Collection, including this statuette, is claimed to have come from the Middle-Egyptian town Assyut, and a particularly close similarity in their size, body proportions and style of decoration suggests that they were evidently made by the same hand. Yet, the methods of manufacture and certain postures, uncharacteristic of the genuine pieces, reveal that they are all forged antiquities.