Statue of Minemheb (c. 1391–1353 BCE): Art, History and Details

Statue of Minemheb (c. 1391–1353 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Minemheb was one of the many court officials who helped prepare for Amenhotep III's 30-year jubilee festival. Clearly, Minemheb regarded this as the high point of his career, since his title as chief of construction for the jubilee temple is the primary one provided on this statue. It is actually a statue within a statue: Minemheb kneels to present a small altar, upon which squats a statue of the god Thoth in baboon form. Carved in extremely hard stone, Minemheb's statue is nonetheless carefully detailed and superbly modeled. Special attention was given to the rendering of the baboon's face. The heavy-lidded eyes and furrowed brow give the animal an almost contemplative expression.

Object facts

• Title: Statue of Minemheb
• Date: c. 1391–1353 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, New Kingdom (1540–1069 BCE), Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BCE)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: granodiorite
• Dimensions: Overall: 45 x 16.6 x 28.3 cm (17 11/16 x 6 9/16 x 11 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - New Kingdom
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1996.28

A detail from the museum

The baboon in this sculpture is the god Thoth in one of his animal forms.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kozloff, Arielle P., Betsy Morrell Bryan, Lawrence Michael Berman, and Elisabeth Delange. Egypt's Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and His World. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1992.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Rare Egyptian Sculpture, Old Master Painting, Important Cambodian Bronze,” June 13, 1996, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Kozloff, Arielle. "An Old Friend Returns," Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 37, no. 1 (January 1997).

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.