William is fashioned from Egyptian faience, a ceramic material with a siliceous body and a translucent glaze, most commonly turquoise blue or green in color. Walters’s work, simply named “Hippopotamus,” shines a brilliant turquoise because of a glaze Walters developed in the early 1920s known as “Walters blue.” Like William, its surface is also decorated, only with leaflike and scroll motifs. Hyperallergic is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today. But the important thing is that we still feel connected to this very old little statue. Now, he just needs a name…. Several thousand years passed before it was excavated (in 1910) and became part of The Met collection (in 1917).
These invoke his natural habitat of the marshes of the Nile, the great river essential to life in ancient Egypt. “‘William’ is and always has been very popular with museum visitors, which is why we often refer to him as an ‘unofficial mascot.'”. Hippopotamus ("William") ca. Papier Mache William the Hippo, Paper Mache Figurine, Kids Toy, Ready to Ship Gift, hippopotamus, ancient Egypt, Sculpture, Hand Made olyashaidakova From shop olyashaidakova In 1931 the captain wrote an article for the magazine Punch about his picture of William. William is the nickname of a faience hippopotamus from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who serves as an informal mascot of the museum.
As Nicholson writes, animal figures were common during this period and “hippopotamus figurines, usually decorated with aquatic plants, probably symbolized the revitalizing properties of the Nile” and may have held some kind of religious significance, as they were sometimes associated with one of the forms of Seth.
A hippopotamus was caught on camera dragging a child to his death in Lake Victoria as screaming crowds desperately pelted the animal with rocks. Nicknamed “William”, the small hippo statue was made of faience, about 20 cm in length, and housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. about his picture of William. It is one of a pair found in the burial chamber of the nomarch Senbi II at Meir. "[6][7][8] The article was reprinted in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Bulletin in June 1931, and the name stuck.
William is actually one of about a dozen faience hippos the museum owns, but the sole anthropomorphized one. Learn everything you could ever want to know about William here on the Met’s website. Measuring just 11.2cm in height and 20cm in length, the bright, blue faience hippopotamus has a well-rounded body and stumpy legs. William is a small blue faience statuette unearthed from an ancient Egyptian tomb. "William" is a bright blue hippopotamus just under 8 inches high located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 20th century, Captain H.M. Raleigh and his family owned a photograph of the hippopotamus, and began to refer to him as William. during the reigns of Senwosret I and Senwosret II. Blackboard Web Community Manager Privacy Policy (Updated). He is made of faience, a ceramic material that is fired at a high temperature, and is decorated with lotus blossoms, which represent the hippo's creative forces in nature. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. [9] Since then, William has continued to appear in some museum logos and merchandise for both children and adults. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); © 2020 Current Publishing. Middle Kingdom On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 111. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. William looks down from his perch in the galleries. In the installation William was juxtaposed with a ceramic hippo created about four thousand years later by the American artist Carl Walters and acquired by the American Wing in 2017. It was believed that they could help to ensure the rebirth of the deceased, a role that is alluded to in William’s blue glaze and the lotus flowers painted on him. “The quality of this particular statuette and its excellent state of preservation make ‘William’ the best example of this type of object in our collection, and he is the faience hippo statuette that visitors react to most strongly,” Isabel Stünkel, the associate curator of the Department of Egyptian Art told Hyperallergic. It’s even shown on its display label, printed as “Hippopotamus (William).”.
“We have come to love and revere him with an intensity bordering on the pagan.”, Punch is a satirical magazine, and Raleigh most likely a false byline. I took a class on theatre history in college, and I remember the professor saying that a lot of the most creative theatre was made when ideas about theatre were the most restricted. This statuette of a hippopotamus (popularly called "William") was molded in faience, a ceramic material made of ground quartz. In 1931 the captain wrote an article for the magazine. Beneath the blue glaze, the body was painted with lotuses. They were often about four inches tall by about seven inches long and were usually used as grave goods, serving as protective figures for one’s journey through the Nile into the afterlife. [5] As not all hippo statues from this era were elaborately painted, William is a particularly important example; he has been “covered with a decoration in black line of lotus flowers, buds, and leaves” to signal his “natural surroundings among the lowlands of the Nile.”[2] As noted in the Metropolitan Museum’s summary, the hippopotamus was one of the most threatening animals for ancient Egyptians and, in this case, three of William’s legs were purposely broken to prevent him from harming the deceased in the afterlife (the museum has since restored these legs). He remains a popular exhibit to this day. The patron saint of provocation is back with Early Work 1967-79, her first major New York show since 2011. He (she?) William’s new friend is another blue ceramic hippo – this one made by American artist Carl Walters in 1936 and purchased by the Met last year. [1] William can be seen in Gallery 111 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside other objects related to Senbi's tomb. And I totally agree with you about the parameters. According to the Museum’s Bulletin from that year, this hippopotamus is a “particularly fine example of a type found, in common with various other animal forms, among the funerary furnishings of tombs of the Middle Kingdom” and also an exemplary piece of Egyptian faience. He now he lives in … Dynasty (about 1950 B.C. I wonder what Walters would say if he could see his own hippo displayed beside the one he spent so much time studying. (I own one of almost everything. Conversation Between Two Hippos runs through April 2018, but I don’t think either one of these guys is going far even after that. I also love the 1936 sculpture.
All rights reserved. His shape is irregular and dumpy, his flanks are decorated with the outline of the lotus flowers, buds and leaves, the pottery has chipped off his near fore-foot, giving the impression, at all events in the colour-print, of a grey woollen sock bursting through a boot … but it is impossible to look at him for long without a feeling of awe and a realisation of the vastness of eternity. A Scholarly Skater logo by Tracy Pollock.
Fourth grade artists each made their own hippo figurine as part of their study of ancient Egyptian Art. Hippopotamuses were considered dangerous hazards and represented the destructive power of the natural world, chaos, and evil. William is only one of several objects associated with the tomb of "The Steward, Senbi" that were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1917.
Such objects were placed in tombs to magically give life to the deceased. Follow A Scholarly Skater on WordPress.com, The Luttrell Psalter - Day Ten of Medieval Manuscripts, Loving Both Native American Art and Winslow Homer This Week. He is made of faience, a ceramic material that is fired at a high temperature, and is decorated with lotus blossoms, which represent the hippo's creative forces in nature. He definitely is, and I have no trouble imagining that his new friend will become an enduring favorite as well. In 1931, an article appeared in the now defunct British weekly Punch that described the mystique of one small, faience hippo — the ancient Egyptian statuette, decorated with lotus flowers, that is today among the most recognized objects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. William the hippo, after painting. Statuette of a Hippopotamus Sculpture 48 4.8 5 1. You can explore different aspects of his life and story on this page. It is thought that the legs were broken deliberately to reduce the threat this dangerous creature posed to the well-being of the deceased. The ongoing exhibition, Conversation between Two Hippos, is straightforward, placing William in a display case opposite one holding a larger ceramic hippo made … Made primarily of silica sourced from quartz pebbles and sand, faience contains several other components, including water-soluble alkaline salts, such as the carbonates of sodium, and lime. Topics Ancient Egypt, Egypt, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, William the Hippo. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. (Unfortunately, the current ancient Egyptian galleries are not the same ones that Walters would have visited in the 1930s.). If you make your own copy of the Met’s William, the Blue Egyptian Hippo, be sure to come back and show him off here on the blog. After four thousand years, William the ancient Egyptian hippopotamus has a new friend! Raleigh published an article about the hippo for the magazine Punch on March 18, 1931, in which he wrote, "He is described on the back of the frame as "Hippopotamus with Lotus Flowers, Buds and Leaves, XII Dynasty (about 1950 B.C. There was a way to deal with the negative traits of this animal, though. I hadn’t heard of William before but I love his history I like to think that the universe preserves some things for us for a reason- William’s reason is to be the most badass museum mascot out there. Change ). Walters’s hippo strongly resembles William, but he’s no mere copy.
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