Alberto Giacometti at the Met Museum’s Temple of Dendur

Over two thousand years ago, the Met Museum’s Temple of Dendur was a site of worship where cult statues were brought outdoors from the dark recesses of the temple to the terrace during religious festivals.  In lieu of a sculpture representing a deity from the Egyptian pantheon, a 1932 bronze sculpture by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti currently stands just inside the temple’s porch, one of several pieces on loan from the Paris-based Giacometti Foundation.  Walking Woman (I) stands stiffly upright, one foot slightly ahead of the other in a pose familiar from Egyptian and Greek sculptures that the artist studied in Paris.  (On view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side through Sept 8th.)

A sculpture of a slim female figure stands between two temple columns.
Alberto Giacometti, Walking Woman (I), bronze, 1932.

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