Why William the blue hippo has three replacement legs

An Egyptian blue hippo carries flowers of renewal, while its restored legs may point to an ancient fear of the animal.

William looks remarkably comfortable for an animal with three replacement legs. His body is round, his feet are planted, and a flowering wetland seems to grow across his blue skin. Yet those repaired limbs point to a very different response to a hippopotamus: fear.

The small Egyptian figure, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, dates to about 1961–1878 BCE. It was found with burial equipment at Meir, associated with the steward Senbi. The museum interprets the missing legs as probably intentional damage, meant to keep the animal from threatening the deceased. That explanation is an interpretation of the evidence, rather than a surviving instruction left by the person who broke them. The collection record preserves that distinction.

A dangerous animal carrying a hopeful pattern

A hippo could endanger boats on the Nile. Placing its likeness in a burial therefore involved more than affection for an appealing shape. The creature’s potential power had to be managed.

The painted lotuses add another meaning. Their association with the river places the animal in its habitat; their daily opening and closing also made them symbols of renewal. The figure brings danger and regeneration together in one body. Its modern nickname, first popularized through a 1931 story in Punch, belongs to a much later chapter.

Look at how the decoration moves across the sculpture. Long stems stretch over the rounded flank, while petals interrupt the broad blue surface. There is no separate rectangle containing a picture of a marsh. The animal itself becomes the picture’s ground. From this angle, a flower spreads over the shoulder as naturally as a patterned fabric might fold around a body.

The material remains a puzzle

William is made from Egyptian faience, a quartz-rich ceramic material. In a 2017 examination, Met conservators investigated the figure with microscopy, ultraviolet light, X-rays, and elemental analysis. They identified copper in the blue glaze and manganese in a black plant motif, among other findings.

Their experiments also explain why this was difficult work. Wet faience paste does not behave like ordinary potter’s clay: it can slump when moved and crack when folded. Shaping a substantial animal from it required considerable control. The investigators found clues to more than one possible glazing method, but could not settle exactly how William had been made.

That uncertainty makes the finished surface more interesting. We can recognize the strong outline immediately, while the process behind it remains only partly visible. The smooth blue body is the outcome of decisions that cannot all be reconstructed from the result.

Try looking once more at the feet. They support the familiar, apparently complete animal in the photograph, but they also mark the distance between its ancient use and its museum life. A restoration can restore a silhouette without erasing the history of what was missing.

Object & sources

Hippopotamus ("William")
ca. 1961–1878 B.C. · Faience

• The Met: Hippopotamus (“William”)
• The Met: Getting to Know William, Inside and Out

Historical information is drawn from the linked museum records and research. Visual observations are Storied Spark’s own. Storied Spark is independent of the institutions cited.