ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART
FROM THE MUSÉE DU LOUVRE
IN ONE-TIME-ONLY EXHIBITION

Ra has placed the king
on the earth of the living
for ever and eternity.
Judging humanity, satisfying the gods,
realizing Right, annihilating Wrong,
he gives offerings to the gods
and funerary offerings to the dead.
--ancient Egyptian text, King As Priest of the Sun God

Victorious rulers, intimates of the gods, guardians of the order of the universe, the ancient Egyptian pharaohs possessed a mystique among their subjects that continues to capture the imagination of modern peoples through their legacy of pyramids and lavish burials. Now, Pharaohs: Treasures of Egyptian Art from the Louvre brings viewers face-to-face with these exalted historic figures by way of thirty royal portraits in stone from one of the world's greatest collections of Egyptian art, that of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. This unprecedented exhibition is on view only at the Cleveland Museum of Art, from February 11 through April 14, 1996 (note new opening date), and is sponsored by Society Bank/KeyCorp.

Every major period of Egyptian history--over 3,000 years--is represented in this exhibition by at least one superb statue, relief, or stele. Ranging in size from four-inch statuettes to over-life-size portraits, they portray many of Egypt's most famous rulers in their roles as sovereigns: Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamen (King Tut), Ramesses II (the Great), and Cleopatra. Of these thirty works made for ancient Egypt's greatest art patrons, only four have ever been seen in the United States, and this exhibition is the only occasion for which the beautiful Pair Statuette of Akhenaten and Nefertiti has been lent since the Louvre acquired it in 1938. Robert P. Bergman, director of the Cleveland museum, says of this event:

We feel enormously privileged to bring to the American public these famous masterpieces--so famous in the world of art history, pictured in textbooks and coffee table books the world over but most never seen in person on this side of the Atlantic. Our friends at the Louvre have been extremely gracious in granting Cleveland this unique opportunity. It is especially thrilling to be able to present this exhibition from one of Europe's great civic cultural treasures as the City of Cleveland celebrates its own Bicentennial.

Lawrence M. Berman, noted Egyptologist and assistant curator of ancient art at the museum, has been the driving force behind the exhibition. Dr. Berman hopes that, in addition to experiencing the excitement of seeing beautiful images of rulers from a far-away time and place, visitors will take this opportunity to have a more focused experience of Egyptian art than many shows--or such extensive galleries as the Louvre's--can produce:

For many people, art from a foreign civilization can appear to have a certain sameness. At a closer look, one begins to see beyond an unfamiliar culture's enduring artistic conventions and "givens" and comes to appreciate its evolving tastes and styles. Pharaohs, with its unifying theme of kings, offers side-by-side comparisons of how ancient Egypt's greatest artists treated the human form over time. It also helps us begin to see pharaohs not only as remote authority figures but also as members of historic families, whose faces are recognizable.

The earliest work in the exhibition is the celebrated Predynastic Bull Palette from about 3000 BC. This shield-shaped relief shows the king in the form of a strong, sexually potent bull trampling its enemy, the bull's graceful back and horns forming the upper edge of the complex and still mysterious composition of images and early hieroglyphics. The limestone Stele of Qahedjet is among several works on view acquired by the Louvre only in recent decades; its historical importance as the earliest known image of a king and god embracing, and its extremely subtle relief carving and delicate modeling, ensure its place with the collection's best-known works.

The magnificent Old Kingdom red quartzite Head of Djedefra, from a Sphinx, has been famous since its discovery in the pyramid of Abu Rawash, north of Giza, in 1907. The renowned tradition of portrait sculpture in the Middle Kingdom period is embodied to perfection in the life-size granodiorite Seated Statue of Sesostris III.

The celebrated New Kingdom pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhenaten (with and without Queen Nefertiti), Tutankhamen, and Ramesses II are represented in sculpture in the round and in painted relief. Cleopatra appears in the time-honored guise of a bare-chested male pharaoh, wearing the double crown and triangular kilt, offering to the goddess Isis and her baby, Horus. The latest work of art in the exhibition is the marble Portrait of a Roman Emperor, Probably Nero, in full pharaonic regalia.

Ten works from Cleveland's own Egyptian collection offer additional comparisons and fill important places in the essentially chronological arrangement of the exhibition. For example, Cleveland's portraits of Amenemhat III and Amenhotep III are exhibited alongside the Louvre's. Cleveland's Striding Apis Bull is juxtaposed with Louvre works, showing the king worshiping the sacred bull of Memphis. These Louvre works are from the Serapeum at Saqqara, the sensational mid-19th-century discovery by a French Egyptologist of the catacombs of the sacred Apis bulls.

The Musée du Louvre, Paris, is one of the world's oldest, largest, and most renowned museums. This vast former palace is on a site used as a fortress and royal residence off-and-on since the 12th century, and has been enlarged in two huge wings by French rulers over the centuries up to its establishment as a public museum under Napoleon some two hundred years ago. Its best-known recent addition is the glass pyramid entrance complex designed by American architect I.M. Pei, completed in 1989.

The Louvre's department of Egyptian antiquities was established in 1826 under "father of Egyptology" Jean François Champollion, who deciphered hieroglyphs on the Rosetta stone now in the British Museum, London. The Louvre's Egyptian collection is remarkable for its size--50,000 objects--and historical importance, as well as for the quality of its holdings. The dismantling of the Egyptian galleries for complete renovation, the final stage of the project known as the Grand Louvre, provides Cleveland the unique opportunity to organize Pharaohs. The new galleries, considerably expanded, are scheduled to reopen in 1997.

A 100-page fully illustrated catalogue is available at the Museum Store in softcover for $19.95 and in hardcover for $29.95. Written by Lawrence M. Berman and Bernadette Letellier, curator in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre, and published by the Cleveland museum in association with Oxford University Press, it also includes comparative illustrations of additional works from the collections of the Louvre and the Cleveland museum.

A symposium, family programs, and other events are planned. Lectures include a Cleveland museum presentation by Kent R. Weeks, of the American University in Cairo, who has recently received media attention for his discovery in 1995 of the tomb of the sons of Ramesses II (the Great) in the Valley of the Kings.

Pharaohs begins a cycle of four exhibitions organized by the Cleveland museum to honor the citizens and City of Cleveland on the city's 200th anniversary in 1996. The remaining Bicentennial exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are: Transformations in Cleveland Art (May 19-July 21, 1996), Urban Evidence: Contemporary Artists Reveal Cleveland (August 25-October 27, 1996), and Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).