Page 205 - Features of an Era
P. 205
The removal of this statue was not the end of its story; the disappearance and lack of
documentation of it paved the way for some foreign researchers to prove unfounded
information and make assumptions in order to fill the historical gaps encountered in
the facts concerning the accomplishment of many of our artworks. The mentioned
previously researcher Max Karkégi relied on an unfounded oral account narrated
by an unknown woman whom he met in Paris. She attributed the statue of King
Fouad to another sculptor rather than its original creator Mustafa Naguib. Karkégi
adopted this oral account without scrutiny, depending on it to write a caption under
the picture of this statue on his website. Strangely, he did not realize the caption he
wrote contradicted with the historical facts. The caption was «Cette statue, oeuvre
du grand sculpteur égyptien El Wakil, frère de Madame Moustapha El Nahas Pacha
ne sera jamais inauguré et sera retiré en 1953.»(42) (This statue was made by the great
Egyptian sculptor El-Wakil, brother of Mrs. Mustafa El-Nahas Pasha. It was never
displayed and was removed in 1953.)
Obviously, the simplest examination of the facts of history ensures the destruction
of this false story. It is known that none of the brothers of Mrs. Zeinab El-Wakil (-1908
1967), daughter of Abdel Wahid Pasha El-Wakil (1942-1872) and wife of Mustafa
El-Nahas (1965-1879), former prime minister and leader of the Wafd party after Saad
Zaghloul, was a plastic artist. Moreover, there was no sculptor named «El-Wakil»
in the history of Egyptian modern art in the first half of the twentieth century to be
described as the «great», as Karkégi said. Consequently, the contradiction of his story
ran him into serious trouble; he could not declare explicitly the full name of this
claimed «great» sculptor. He referred to him only by family name, forgetting that Mr.
Muhammad El-Wakil was the only one of Mrs. Zeinab El-Wakil’s brothers who was
well-known as he was the undersecretary of the Ministry of Transportation in the last
government formed by the Wafd party.
When I emailed Karkégi, asking about the source of this story, he simply replied
that when he was with his mother in Paris in the late seventies, he met a French
woman who was married to a member of the Egyptian Al-Shohair’s family at that
time. She told them that she was the ex-wife of the sculptor El-Wakil, and her then
husband was shocked after the removal of the statue of King Fouad, and people
stopped buying his works of art.
Oddly, when I asked him again for a detailed answer in a later e-mail, he replied:
²Yasser Bey, I cannot tell you what happened to this statue.»(43) After I asked him
explicitly about Mustafa Naguib, I did not receive any more replies from him.
Strangely, the location of the same picture Karkégi posted on his website was soon
discovered after examining some sources that published the stages of the statue made
by Mustafa Naguib. That is illustrated by the pictures published in Sawt El-Fannan
journal in December 1951; that workroom was the stable of the Royal Agriculture
(42) See the website of Max Karkégi: http://www.egyptedantan.com/famille_souveraine/famille_souveraine9.htm
(43) An excerpt of the e-mail sent by the late French historian Max Karkégi on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011.
205
documentation of it paved the way for some foreign researchers to prove unfounded
information and make assumptions in order to fill the historical gaps encountered in
the facts concerning the accomplishment of many of our artworks. The mentioned
previously researcher Max Karkégi relied on an unfounded oral account narrated
by an unknown woman whom he met in Paris. She attributed the statue of King
Fouad to another sculptor rather than its original creator Mustafa Naguib. Karkégi
adopted this oral account without scrutiny, depending on it to write a caption under
the picture of this statue on his website. Strangely, he did not realize the caption he
wrote contradicted with the historical facts. The caption was «Cette statue, oeuvre
du grand sculpteur égyptien El Wakil, frère de Madame Moustapha El Nahas Pacha
ne sera jamais inauguré et sera retiré en 1953.»(42) (This statue was made by the great
Egyptian sculptor El-Wakil, brother of Mrs. Mustafa El-Nahas Pasha. It was never
displayed and was removed in 1953.)
Obviously, the simplest examination of the facts of history ensures the destruction
of this false story. It is known that none of the brothers of Mrs. Zeinab El-Wakil (-1908
1967), daughter of Abdel Wahid Pasha El-Wakil (1942-1872) and wife of Mustafa
El-Nahas (1965-1879), former prime minister and leader of the Wafd party after Saad
Zaghloul, was a plastic artist. Moreover, there was no sculptor named «El-Wakil»
in the history of Egyptian modern art in the first half of the twentieth century to be
described as the «great», as Karkégi said. Consequently, the contradiction of his story
ran him into serious trouble; he could not declare explicitly the full name of this
claimed «great» sculptor. He referred to him only by family name, forgetting that Mr.
Muhammad El-Wakil was the only one of Mrs. Zeinab El-Wakil’s brothers who was
well-known as he was the undersecretary of the Ministry of Transportation in the last
government formed by the Wafd party.
When I emailed Karkégi, asking about the source of this story, he simply replied
that when he was with his mother in Paris in the late seventies, he met a French
woman who was married to a member of the Egyptian Al-Shohair’s family at that
time. She told them that she was the ex-wife of the sculptor El-Wakil, and her then
husband was shocked after the removal of the statue of King Fouad, and people
stopped buying his works of art.
Oddly, when I asked him again for a detailed answer in a later e-mail, he replied:
²Yasser Bey, I cannot tell you what happened to this statue.»(43) After I asked him
explicitly about Mustafa Naguib, I did not receive any more replies from him.
Strangely, the location of the same picture Karkégi posted on his website was soon
discovered after examining some sources that published the stages of the statue made
by Mustafa Naguib. That is illustrated by the pictures published in Sawt El-Fannan
journal in December 1951; that workroom was the stable of the Royal Agriculture
(42) See the website of Max Karkégi: http://www.egyptedantan.com/famille_souveraine/famille_souveraine9.htm
(43) An excerpt of the e-mail sent by the late French historian Max Karkégi on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011.
205
