Summary of This Activity       Behind the Scenes Learn about the radical changes this statue has undergone. Big Picture Back in Time                 Statue of Ity-sen Limestone Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, circa 2500–2350 B.C. From Giza, tomb of Ra-wer 61 x 20 1/2 x 15 3/16 in. (155 x 52 x 38.5 cm) 37.365, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund           The BMA acquired this statue of a standing man in 1937. In 1945, Brooklyn Museum Curator John Cooney showed that this figure was originally part of a larger statuary group that included five figures, and that it represents a man named Ity-sen. In the spring of 2002, the statue underwent significant treatment in the BMA’s conservation labs in preparation for reinstallation.           Reuniting Ity-sen with His Family Originally, Ity-sen was accompanied by a figure of his wife, Hetep-heres. They were “Royal Acquaintances” (nobles). Ity-sen and Hetep-heres stood on either side of their son, Ra-wer, along with Ra-wer’s son and daughter.           The group was broken apart and the heads knocked off, possibly in ancient times. The individual figures were brought to the United States in the 1920s and are currently in five different museum collections. The other four figures are:                 Ra-wer Ra-wer, Ity-sen’s son, was a very important man. His titles, including royal hairdresser, indicate that he was a personal attendant to the king. The complete family group statue stood in Ra-wer’s tomb, so he was depicted as the largest and most central of the five figures. This figure is in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.       Statue of Ra-wer Limestone Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, circa 2500–2350 B.C. From Giza, tomb of Ra-wer 70 x 25 3/4 x 16 1/2 in. (175 x 64 x 41 1/4 cm) 38-11, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri Purchase: Nelson Trust Photograph by Robert Newcomb           Lady Hetep-heres Lady Hetep-heres was Ity-sen’s wife and Ra-wer’s mother. This figure of her is now at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. Lady Hetep-heres was originally shown embracing her son, and traces of her right hand are still visible around his waist.       Statue of Hetep-heres Limestone Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, circa 2500–2350 B.C. From Giza, tomb of Ra-wer Height: 54 in. (137 cm) 1934.48, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts           Boy Ra-wer This small figure of Ra-wer’s son, also named Ra-wer, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The child was originally depicted on his father’s left side, and only as tall as his father’s thigh. Ancient Egyptian artists usually depicted small children naked with a sidelock of hair and a finger-to-mouth gesture.       Statue of the Boy Ra-wer Limestone Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, circa 2500–2350 B.C. From Giza, tomb of Ra-wer 18 x 8 1/2 in. (45 x 21.25 cm) 66.195, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1966. (66.195) Photograph, all rights reserved, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.           Girl Hetep-heres This small figure of Ra-wer’s daughter, named after her grandmother Hetep-heres, is in the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum in California. The child was originally depicted between Ity-sen and Ra-wer, embracing her father’s leg. Traces of her hand are still visible near Ra-wer’s right knee.       Statue of a Young Girl (Hetep-heres) Limestone Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, circa 2500–2350 B.C. From Giza, tomb of Ra-wer 21 1/4 in. (54 cm) 01.005.2001, Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum, California State University, San Bernadino, California Gift of the Harer Family Trust, 2002.           The Reunited Family This illustration gives you some idea of how the statue would have looked before its parts were separated.       Drawing of the Reunited Group Statue of Ity-sen, Ra-wer, and their Family Illustration after Dan Chaffee, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri                 Follow the Statue’s Conservation In the spring of 2002, Katrina Posner, a graduate conservation intern from the Art Conservation Department at Buffalo State College, began work on the conservation of Ity-sen’s figure. The treatment included removing the statue from its former exhibition case, taking apart the figure along previous breaklines, examining and removing earlier restorations (adhesives and plaster), replacing those with more stable materials, and reassembling the statue. The following photographs give some sense of this process.                 Katrina determined that the statue was broken in several places. Some of these breaks may have been intentional, to simplify the statue’s shipment out of Egypt. At some point the statue had been reassembled with adhesive and some of the cracks filled with plaster and overpainted.                     The space between the statue’s legs had been filled with plaster during an earlier treatment, perhaps in 1937. In 2002, Katrina determined that the plaster infill was not necessary for the statue’s stability and removed it.                     After Katrina and BMA staff carefully removed the statue from its case, they discovered that its original solid stone back had been hollowed out—perhaps to make it lighter for transportation—and filled with plaster. Here you see the statue from the side, on its front.                     With the help of several art handlers, Katrina placed the statue face down to view the plaster filling in its hollowed-out back, legs, and arms. She later removed the plaster—which was not original—in order to work with the statue. Even without this plaster filling, the statue weighs about 300 pounds.                     After examining the statue, Katrina identified this portion of the torso as thin plaster filling, not original stone.                     Katrina located the outline of the thin plaster filling on the front of the statue’s torso, and then used small dental tools and scalpels to work away the plaster fill, revealing the original stone surface. Conservators decided that removing the remaining plaster from the front would negatively affect the statue’s appearance.                     Katrina refilled the cracks and then repainted the surface so it would appear smooth and match the original.

Big Picture Back in Time