New Kingdom: Thutmose's Bust of Nefertiti

Art History

Ancient Egypt

Introduction
Egyptian Art
Materials & Techniques
Ancient Near Eastern & Ancient Egyptian Art
Old Kingdom: Seated Scribe
New Kingdom: House Altar with Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three Daughters
Portrait Head of Queen Tiye with a Crown of Two Feathers
New Kingdom: Thutmose's Bust of Nefertiti
New Kingdom: Ramesses II
Ptolemaic: Rosetta Stone

New Kingdom: Thutmose's Bust of Nefertiti Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1340 BCE, limestone and plaster, New Kingdom, 18th dynasty, Amarna Period (Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection/Neues Museum, Berlin)

Back

New Kingdom: Thutmose's Bust of Nefertiti

⇐ Use this menu to view and help create subtitles for this video in many different languages. You'll probably want to hide YouTube's captions if using these subtitles.

We are in the Neues museum in Berlin and
we are looking at the famous bust of Neferititi. It is
a life-sized full colored image and it is really
impressive. It is the treasure of this museum and
it has been placed in a rotonda with a large dome,
she's been placed slightly higher than eye level
so we look up at her. She is
fabulously beautiful. She is virtually the sole
work of art in this very large space. Its
clearly, she is the focal point. Yes, it's quite theatrical
And unlike the many other Egyptian sculptures,
she wasn't intended for a tombe. She was found
in the studio of artist who made her, Thutmose. We
think that this sculpture is actually a model
that he'd created in order to work on other sculptures of her. That is
This sculpture would function as a three dimensional
sketch. As a prototype. That's right. And there are a few reasons
why that's thought, not only wat it found in his studio, but it
is incomplete in a way that it suggests that it was never meant
to be completed. If you look for instance at the sockets
of the eyes, that would generally be inlaid with semi precious stones
but only one eye has any inlay in it. And in that case
it is temporary material, even wax. And so,
not the kind of quality that one would expect in a full
fledged sculpture for the queen. Art historians
have discovered through scientific analysis that
she is made not of just painted limestone, but limestone that is covered
with a very thin layer of plaster and that
enabled the sculptor to achieve really a subtle effects
modelling her face. But in the neck and the headdress
the plaster gets much thicker. It would have been
much easier to work and create that very fine detail on
the plaster rather than on the coarser material of the
limestone core. And that is so important where we see the lines
very subtle movements around her cheeks. What is
so remarkable about this sculpture is how
sensitively carved she is, how we get a sense of skin
and bone and these lovely movements around
her face. She is tremendously elegant but
even beyond this simple elegance of the contrast of her face, her high cheekbones,
the shallow of her cheeks, her long neck,
beautiful symmetry. A way in which line is
unified throughout the entire potrait bust
for instance, if all the lines downwards that are constructed
by the contours of her headdress, but tapers as
as it moves towards her chin to her face and headdress
create a perfect triangle. But that's actually continued
by the lines of her neck below her chin and
it's accentuated by the lighting in the museum,
but it really does create the sense of continuity
from the top of the sculpture to it's base.
What we are describing is a new ideal of beauty
that's really different from the tradition
of ancient Egyptian sculpture. And thats because
Nefertiti was the wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten,
who established a new religion in ancient Egypt that
was monotheistic instead of the traditional
polytheistic religon and with that he created a
new ideal of beauty, that we see in the
sculptures that were created during his reign.
Thats right. I think we see this sculpture
really is a perfect examplar. Nefertiti is
especially interesting, because we believe she did not
simply function as the wife of the pharaoh,
but she is shown in so many portaits with the
accoutrements of the ruler, that we think that
she actually shared power. It's interesting,
this period we call the Amarna period of Akhenaten's
reign, where we have two powerful women. His
mother Tiye and his wife Nefertiti. Both
represented as beautiful women, as powerful women
in giving us a kind of insight in to late Egyptian culture.

Questions
Tips & Feedback

Be specific, and indicate a time in the video:

At 5:31, how is the moon large enough to block the sun? Isn't the sun way larger?

Have something that's not a question about this content?

Post a tip or feedback
General discussion about the site
Report a technical problem with the site
Request a video or feature

This discussion area is not meant for answering homework questions.

Formatting tips

Cancel or

( total)

Share a tip

When naming a variable, it is okay to use most letters, but some are reserved, like 'e', which represents the value 2.7831...

Suggest a fix

At 2:33, Sal says "double bonds" but should say "single bonds."

Have something that's not a tip or feedback about this content?

Ask a question
General discussion about the site
Report a technical problem with the site
Request a video or feature

This discussion area is not meant for answering homework questions.

Formatting tips

Cancel or

Discuss the site

For general discussions about Khan Academy, visit our Reddit discussion page.

Flag inappropriate posts

Here are posts to avoid making. If you do encounter them, flag them for attention from our Guardians.

abuse

disrespectful or offensive
an advertisement

not helpful

low quality
not about the video topic
soliciting votes or seeking badges
a homework question
a duplicate answer
repeatedly making the same post

wrong category

a tip or feedback in Questions
a question in Tips & Feedback
an answer that should be its own question

about the site

a question about Khan Academy
(Visit our FAQ)
a post about badges
a technical problem with the site
(Report a problem)
a request for videos or features