Naophorous Statue of the Finance Officer and Overseer of Fields, Horwedja (521–486 BCE): Art, History and Details

Naophorous Statue of the Finance Officer and Overseer of Fields, Horwedja (521–486 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Naophorous (naos.bearing) statues show the subject holding a naos, or shrine, containing an image of a deity, in this case the god Ptah of Memphis. These statues were very popular during the Late Period. Almost invariably they are of hard stone, made to last for eternity. As finance officer under Darius I, Horwedja was in a good position to afford such a monument. Darius I was the second Persian king to rule over Egypt and the only one who seems to have had a genuine appreciation of the country. Egypt prospered under his rule, and the arts flourished.

Object facts

• Title: Naophorous Statue of the Finance Officer and Overseer of Fields, Horwedja
• Date: 521–486 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Late period (715–332 BCE), Dynasty 27, reign of Darius I (522–486 BCE)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: graywacke
• Dimensions: Overall: 43 x 14 x 23.2 cm (16 15/16 x 5 1/2 x 9 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Late Period
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1920.1978

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.