Statue of Sebek-em-sauf

This portly, bald man dressed in a long kilt is Sebek-em-sauf, a powerful courtier. His prominent position at court is reflected in the fact that he commissioned this almost life-size portrait-statue of himself. Note his forceful, realistic expression. Sebek-em-sauf’s name and titles are recorded on the front of his long kilt, together with the name of his mother, Dat-nefer. His father is mentioned at the end of an inscription on the back pillar: he was called Dedu-sebek Bebi. Sebek-em-sauf’s title was wehemu - herold or “conveyer of orders”. The offering formula on the back pillar addresses the god “Month of Thebes, resident at Hermonthis”. This tells us that the statue comes from Armant (Latin: Hermonthis), located a little south of Thebes on the western shore of the Nile and home to a temple dedicated to the god Month.Today, the statue is composed of three pieces. Head and body were once in the so-called Miramar Collection assembled by Archduke Ferdinand Max, later Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and originally intended for a planned museum in Mexico. The fragments were acquired in Egypt between 1855 and 1865. After Maximilian’s execution at Querétaro/Mexico in 1867 the collection remained for some time at Miramar Palace, Maximilian’s former residence near Trieste. In 1878 it was incorporated into the Imperial Collections but only arrived in Vienna in 1883. However, the original base with Sebek-em-sauf’s feet had been separated from the other fragments even before their acquisition. We still do not know how the base ended up in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin (Dublin, reg. no. 1889.503). In 1992, however, Dublin sent the base to Vienna as a permanent loan.Text: © Regina Hölzl, Meisterwerke der Ägyptisch-Orientalischen Sammlung, Wien 2007.