s II. charging the enemy at Abu
Simbel is as fine as the portraits of Seti I., though in another style. The
action of the arm which brandishes the lance is somewhat angular, but the
expression of strength and triumph which animates the whole person of the
warrior king, and the despairing resignation of the vanquished, compensate
for this one defect. The group of Horemheb and the god Amen (fig. 198), in
the Museum of Turin, is a little dry in treatment. The faces of both god
and king lack expression, and their bodies are heavy and ill-balanced. The
fine colossi in red granite which Horemheb placed against the uprights of
the inner door of his first pylon at Karnak, the bas-reliefs on the walls
of his speos at Silsilis, his own portrait and that of one of the ladies of
his family now in the museum of Gizeh, are, so to say, spotless and
faultless. The queen's face (fig. 199) is animated and intelligent; the
eyes are large and prominent; the mouth is wide, but well shaped. This head
is carved in hard limestone of a creamy tint which seems to soften the
somewhat satirical expression of her eyes and smile. The king (fig. 200) is
in black granite; and the sombre hue of the stone at once produces a
mournful impression upon the spectator. His youthful face is pervaded by an
air of melancholy, such as we rarely see depicted in portraits of Pharaohs
of the great period. The nose is straight and delicate, the eyes are long,
the lips are large, full, somewhat contracted at the corners, and strongly
defined at the edges. The chin is overweighted by the traditional false
beard. Every detail is treated with as much skill as if the sculptor were
dealing with a soft stone instead of with a material which resisted the
chisel. Such, indeed, is the mastery of the execution, that one forgets the
difficulties of the task in the excellence of the results.

[Illustration: Fig. 200.--Head of Horemheb.]

[Illustration: Fig. 201.--Colossal statue of Rameses II., Luxor.]

It is unfortunate that Egyptian artists never signed their works; for the
sculptor of this portrait of Horemheb deserves to be remembered. Like the
Eighteenth Dynasty, the Nineteenth Dynasty delighted in colossi. Those of
Rameses II. at Luxor measured from eighteen to twenty feet in height (fig.
201); the colossal Rameses of the Ramesseum sat sixty feet high; and that
of Tanis about seventy.[49] The colossi of Abu Simbel, without being of
quite such formidable proportions, face th