Jack Kradolfer

March 23, 2015

MFA Works Paper Assignment

The marble-carved depiction of an elite Roman woman and the small stone worship
statue of a Queen from Ancient Egypt are two pieces of art through the ages that can be
compared using visual and historical evidence. The two works are The Statue of a Queen and
The Statue of Aphrodite. These two statues both serve to represent elite women in god-like form,
but the Statue of a Queen informs no distinction between the queen and the goddess, whereas
The Statue of Aphrodites goal is to represent a specific Roman empress on a goddess body.
Both pieces are indicative of the status of important women during their respective time periods,
but are serving two distinct purposes that separate their function and form.
Statue of a Queen is a two and a half foot tall stone statue from the Ptolemaic Dynasty of
Ancient Egypt, dating to around 300 BC. Statues of women were not common before Alexander
the Greats conquest of Egypt. During the Ptolemaic Dynasty, queens played a large role and
were represented as divine. The statue presents the figure of a woman, with the distinctive left
foot forward along with the arms and clenched hands against the sides. She holds the sign of
Ankh, meaning life, in her right hand. The statue has a thin, vertical look, with the anatomy and
dressing being shown with mostly straight up and down lines. The head is missing but the neck
shows details of either tight necklaces or rolls of fat. The form of the female body is shown with
the hourglass shape, round tummy, wide hips, large breasts, and small arms. The feet extend out
onto the stone platform base and the toes seem elongated. Most of the body is exposed to the
viewer, but the women appears to be wearing a knotted garment that hangs over her shoulders
and goes down the center of the torso to her feet. This piece of clothing is not heavily

distinguished from her body, and it blends with the figure as if she was wearing nothing. The
statue has a stone base and the back of the figure is uncarved flat stone, either to support the
figure or create a flush surface for the statue to be placed directly against a wall. The anatomy of
the backside is formed around this flat piece, with details like the shape of the arching back and
the outward roundness of the butt, most likely to create a realistic side-view. The statue was not
meant to be viewed from behind. Queens of the Ptolemaic Dynasty were treated as goddesses,
and the statues without inscriptions would make the distinction between a queen and goddess
indiscernible.
The Statue of Aphrodite is a five foot marble statue from the Roman Imperial Period
around the first-century AD. The piece is an adaptation of a Greek Aphrodite statue from around
420 BC. The statues head would have been put in place after the rest of the body had been
carved, with the intentions of inserting a bust with the likeness of an important or elite woman
that could be shown with the body of Venus. The head is now lost, along with the right arm and
the end of the left arm. This statue features the body of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love,
portrayed in the Greek classical style adapted by Romans. The figure shows realistic human
weight shifting and distribution, to add to the balance of the piece. The female body is idealized
in this statue, possessing feminine curves around the hips, a flat stomach, and prominent breasts.
The drapery that covers the anatomy of the figure clings to the shapes and curves of the body,
cutting further down the statue creating deep folds that produce contrasting shadows to the white
marble. The drapery looks damp, and especially thin against the body. The entire form is covered
by it, but it is thin enough to show definition of all body parts. The folds of the drapery hang
down like columns on the sides and back of the statue.

The Statue of a Queen and The Statue of Aphrodite were sculpted hundreds of years apart
and by different civilizations, but still share functional similarities that link them as artistic
works. The Ptolemaic Egyptian sculpture is either of a queen or goddess, and would be put in a
temple for worship. The queen played a large role in this society, and was represented as so. The
Roman Statue of Aphrodite was created to serve as a representation of an elite Roman woman,
an important figure at that time, to be remembered as beautiful and godly. Her likeness would be
placed on the body of Aphrodite, a form that was considered worthy by this elite woman. Both
pieces were created in honor of these people, to capture their existence and importance in stone
for many people to admire and respect. However, since there is no inscription on the Statue of a
Queen, it is not possible to tell whether the statue shows a queen or a goddess, but the distinction
is not necessarily important because of how the Ptolemaic Dynasty treated their queens as deity.
The Statue of Aphrodite would have had likeness to the Roman woman and would be made to
ensure her legacy, which is different to the Statue of a Queen in that the distinction is important
and the statue will serve as a status symbol for the Roman woman.
In terms of style and form, The Statue of Aphrodite takes on the classical style made
popular by the Greeks while The Statue of a Queen takes on the Egyptian style. Aphrodite has
true likeness to human anatomy and balance, but the Statue of a Queen shows a more rigid
human and focuses on a thin and vertical depiction of the human form. The folds and lines on the
body and clothing are also different in an obvious way, with the Roman statue putting deep cuts
into the drapery and using a damp thinness so the clothing is defining the bodys shape, while the
Ptolemaic statue hardly uses any deep cuts or folds in the drapery. Rather, the vague folds carved
into the stone lightly serve to represent the small amount of drapery on the body of the queen.
The lack of thick cuts and clothing give the statue a more smooth and rounded look. The detail

on the Aphrodite statue is also far greater, with particular attention to folds in the skin around
joints like the knees and bending feet. The drapery is carved with extreme detail as well. Details
on the Queen statue are minimal, with very few realistic details for how the skin should form
over muscles and bones. The toes on this statue seem flat and elongated, whereas on the
Aphrodite statue they are very realistic, with toenails and folds like real human feet. It seems that
the Statue of Aphrodite was created with Aphrodites body being very familiar to the artist, or
just using ideal female characteristics to create the anatomy. The Statue of a Queen seems to be
less individualized and detailed, but still possessing some characteristics of an individual. It is
also smaller, and maybe there were others just like it to represent all the goddess queens.
Both the Statue of a Queen and The Statue of Aphrodite are depictions of
important women from their respective time periods. Although The Statue of a Queen has no
inscription and has implications of being both a queen and goddess, it is paralleled to the statue
of Aphrodite by similarly portraying an elite woman in a lasting piece of art. However, The
Statue of Aphrodite was meant to create a lasting figure of a specific Roman empress, fitted onto
the body of a goddess, which is different from the function of The Statue of a Queen. The styles
of the two pieces are separate, with The Statue of a Queen using the Egyptian style of human
form and the Statue of Aphrodite using the classical Greek style of balance and realistic human
likeness. Both reveal the female form to the viewer, with Aphrodite being shaped by the thin
drapery over her entire body and the Ptolemaic Queen in a more exposed nude fashion.