Sculpture in Egyptianizing Style

Statue of a lifesize male water-carrier in Egyptianizing style, identified because of the pose and the iconography. The man stands frontally with only his left leg advanced. He is either a priest, a male attendant or a participant in a religious ritual. He wears a voluminous but light cloak, draped in non classical fashion around the neck and has both hands enveloped at pleated folds. The hands are clasped above his belly and form a support for a rotunda jar. The jar is a restoration. The statue is carved in high relief but it's not free standing, there is a slab running at the back of the statue and it is flat (30 cm wide) with roughly tooled surface and central ridge (20 cm wide). The slab appears to have been cut down at a later stage. The purpose of the figure may have been to decorate a wall fitting into a shallow recess. Walls screened by a file of carved figures were common in Egypt and may have been the inspiration for this Roman imitation of an Egyptianised monument of perhaps Hadrian's time. Blundell mentioned the statue which he identified as Isis in letters to his friend Charles Townley, the latter was not appreciative of the piece. Blundell intended to pair the statue with one of the caryatids from the Villa Negroni. He confused the piece as an Etruscan in the Engravings. Purchased from the Villa Mattei Collection by Henry Blundell on his first trip to Italy in 1777. Restored: head, neck, and corresponding part of flat background; vase. Small patches on drapery and plinth. The whole surface may have been smoothed over. Summary by Bartman: the correct restoration of the statue as a male Egyptian naoophoros who carried the Nile water, used in cultic rituals connected with Isis.may have been inspired by reliefs from the Villa Mattei, or the Isiac processional scenes or the Egyptianising columns from the Iseum Campense in Rome. Before the current restoration the statue was restored as a female and attracted the attention of Winckelmann who interpreted it as a pregnant woman.