Servant statuette

This standing wooden figure 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. The figure’s ochre-painted body and the plastically modelled exposed breasts make a contrast with the brick red painting and flat chest of the other three male statuettes, raising the possibility of defining this figure as a female worker, even though her definite sexual characteristics are otherwise not indicated. The posture of this fake statuette suggests that she could have been intended as one of the several workers making up a composite scene, and her hands might have rested on both sides of a now indefinable, separately carved object.
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.