In art history books, the pair have come to represent a prime example of Old Kingdom royal tomb sculpture. The statue exhibits with satisfying clarity the Egyptian adherence to a system or "canon" of proportions and, in its strictly frontal viewpoint, the rigid poses of the figures, an unwavering conformity to rules and established conventions which are interpreted both as manifesting the nature of the pharaoh's authority over his subjects and by extension as embodying the highly regulated, hierarchical structure of Ancient Egyptian society.

Statue of Menkaure and His Queen
Image Source: Art images for College Teaching (AICT)

The forms of the sculpture - the measured grid of strong verticals and counterbalancing horizontals, the stiff, artificial postures, the overall idealized anatomical shapes of the bodies combined with naturalistic details - are read not simply as indicative of Egyptian taste, but as representative of the fundamental character of Egyptian culture.

As is so often the case in art history, this sort of extrapolation overlooks or ignores the fact that such sculptures were produced only for a very small elite, in this case the Egyptian royal family. However, perhaps beginning with the Egyptians and prevailing through most of history, it has been the case that the tastes of the elite, and the art produced in conformity with that taste, are regarded as representing the most refined and advanced in that culture.

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