Émile-Louis Picault French, 1883-1915 King Menthuophis

bronze, dark brown patina with gilt highlights, signed E. PICAULT and with the Georges Servant foundry seal, raised on a rouge de France and black marble base.

Stéphane Richemond, Les Orientalistes, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs, Paris, 2008, p. 161 (illustrated)

Pierre Kjellberg, Bronzes of the 19th Century: Dictionary of Sculptors, London, 1994, pp. 542-3

The present model was created by Picault as a pendant group with Queen Nitocris. The legendary Queen Nitocris succeeded Menthuophis (who was either her brother or her husband) as ruler of Egypt following his murder circa 2200 BC. In Nitocris' six year reign there were two particularly important events: the completion of the Third Pyramid and the dreadful revenge against the murderers of Menthuophis. Nitocris instigated the latter by organising a banquet for all the accomplices in a purposefully constructed underground chamber. During the feast the chamber was suddenly flooded with water channeled from the Nile through a hidden pipe. Everyone drowned, apart from Nitocris herself, who had arranged an escape.

Picault was a student under Royer and exhibited a wide genre of sculpture at the Salon between 1863-1909. His Egyptian figures, including this sculpture and its pendant Nitocris as well as Hierogrammate and Pastophore (High Priest and Scribe), are some of his most sought after works.