According to the inscriptions on this statue’s base, the man seated here was Idi, a high-ranking official and overseer of priests. By its style the small image can safely be dated to the sixth dynasty. There is a distinctive air of mannerism and artificiality around this piece. Look at the elongated toes and legs, the schematically emphasized knees and shins, and the high narrow waist. But above all look at the almost mask-like face in which eyes and mouth are overly large and heavily rimmed. Curator emeritus Henry George Fischer has also pointed out that this face is more asymmetrical than are other faces of Egyptian statues. Indeed, the right half of the face is considerably broader than the left, the right eye more slanted and the furrow beside the nostril deeper. Egyptologists and art historians used to believe that the manneristic style of the late Old Kingdom was a sign of degeneration. But now, it is understood as a deliberate shift in emphasis from earlier realistic tendencies to a more conceptual rendering of the human form. Before coming into the collection of the Metropolitan, the small statuette of Idi belonged to Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. After forcefully convincing Japan’s feudal rulers to conclude trading treaties with the West, he received it as a gift from the Egyptian viceroy (the Khedive) Said Pasha.