From the moment that the statue is regarded as the support of the Double, it becomes a condition of primary importance that the statue shall reproduce, at least in the abstract, the proportions and distinctive peculiarities of the corporeal body; and this in order that the Double shall more easily adapt himself to his new body of stone or wood.[43] The head is therefore always a faithful portrait; but the body, on the contrary, is, as it were, a medium kind of body, representing the original at his highest development, and consequently able to exert the fulness of his physical powers when admitted to the society of the gods.

Hence men are always sculptured in the prime of life, and women with the delicate proportions of early womanhood.
This conventional idea was never departed from, unless in cases of very marked deformity.

The statue of a dwarf reproduced all the ugly peculiarities of the dwarf's own body; and it was important that it should so reproduce them.

If a statue of the ordinary type had been placed in the tomb of the dead man, his "Ka," accustomed during life to the deformity of his limbs, would not be able to adapt itself to an upright and shapely figure, and would therefore be deprived of the conditions necessary to his future well-being.

The artist was free to vary the details and arrange the accessories according to his fancy; but without missing the point of his work, he could not change the attitude, or depart from the general style of the conventional portrait statue.