Userhat and his wife Kha may be identified by the hieroglyphic text inscribed on their clothing. Userhat is designated as “Royal Scribe and Overseer of the Granary.” An additional inscription added to the throne’s front section tells us that the pair statue was usurped and reused by another individual in the 30th Dynasty. The elegant garments and the naturalistic rendering of Userhat’s torso indicate a dating from the late 18th or early 19th Dynasty. The outline of Kha’s hand appears wrapped around Userhat’s left arm in a gesture of affection. The statue was excavated from the forecourt of the seventh pylon of the Temple of Amun at Karnak during the restoration work led by French archaeologist Georges Legrain between 1903 and 1907. While the majority of the 800-plus stone statues and 17,000 bronze objects recovered from the cachette are now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo or at Egyptian provincial museums, hundreds of pieces were distributed to other locations, especially museums in New York, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Berlin, and London.
Provenance: Karnak cachette, no. 1203. William Randolph Hearst; Sold [Sotheby & Co. London, sale; The Important Collection of The Property of William Randolph Bearst, Esq., The First Day’s Sale: Prehistoric, Babylonian and Egyptian Antiquities, July 11, 1939, Sale code: NARBO, Lot 51]; Purvis (no information). Purchased [French & Company, NY], 1947 by; LACMA.
