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Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 4
Lesson 4: New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period- New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period, an introduction
- Temple of Amun-Re and the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak
- Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut and Large Kneeling Statue, New Kingdom, Egypt
- The tomb-chapel of Nebamun
- Paintings from the Tomb-chapel of Nebamun
- A bottle and a toy: Objects from daily life
- Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Three Daughters
- Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Three Daughters
- Portrait head of Queen Tiye with a crown of two feathers
- Thutmose, Bust of Nefertiti
- Thutmose, Bust of Nefertiti: backstory
- Thutmose Bust of Nefertiti
- Tutankhamun’s tomb (innermost coffin and death mask)
- Head of Tutankhamun from the Amarna Period of Egypt’s New Kingdom
- Last Judgement of Hunefer, from his tomb
- Hunefer, Book of the Dead
- Ancient Egyptian papyrus in the Book of the Dead Exhibition
- Last Judgement of Hunefer
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Thutmose, 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). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- The other contemporary depictions of Nefertiti shown in the video look very different from this sculpture. Are there any theories that this is a modern forgery? Do those theories carry any weight among art historians or are they just conspiracy theories?(26 votes)
- This artifact is so beautiful. Are there any other sculptures anywhere near this quality from ancient Egypt?(11 votes)
- i think there used to be, but over time a lot of them crumbled. How this one was so nicely preserved I'm not sure. It probably has something to do with the plaster. Not all of the sculptures had it.(4 votes)
- Key Issues in the Video
- This sculpture was found in the studio of the artist who made her, named Thutmose
- This sculpture may have functioned as a 3D sketch or model for other representations of Nefertiti
- A layer of plaster over a limestone base allowed the artist to achieve subtle effects in the modeling of the face
- The artist is working with new artistic conventions that are associated with the Amarna period(6 votes)- Beth, did you perhaps mean key points? Issues implies a problem, and there is none here- all the things you listed were mentioned in the video and represent archaeologically and historically established facts and theories.(5 votes)
- Do we know who's workshop she comes from? (The sculpture, not the person she was based off of.)(4 votes)
- Yes, the work is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose because it was discovered in Thutmose's workshop in 1912.(6 votes)
- Is there any significance to the triangle shape created? Or does that work into what was considered beautiful at the time?(4 votes)
- It's mentioned on the sections on the Great Pyramids that their triangular shape may have been related to the sun, and sun gods, pointing towards the sun. The sun was very important in Egyptian culture. Perhaps this is relevant here?(3 votes)
- Found in the workshop of the Artist. It is so perfect and so much care was taken, however, it was never meant to be on display. I think the artist may have actually been secretly in love with her. That is what artists do when they love someone isn't it? Try to recreate it? The detail and perfection of this piece could have only been generated by love.(4 votes)
- what museum is the Bust in?(1 vote)
- From the author:The Neues Museum in Berlin(4 votes)
- How would this video be cited in MLA?(1 vote)
- Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti," in Smarthistory, December 6, 2015, accessed February 7, 2017, https://smarthistory.org/thutmose-model-bust-of-queen-nefertiti/.(3 votes)
- How do we know for sure that this is a sculpture of Nefertiti and not someone else? Was there a name of some other form of identification on her?(2 votes)
- How we "know" anything for sure is a philosophical question. Even a signature is no guarantee of authenticity. Forgeries are very common. That's why historians, particularly art historians, are so careful in their work.(1 vote)
- did the paint colors and pigments make it to now, or was the bust reconstructed?(2 votes)
Video transcript
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We're in
the Neues Museum in Berlin. And we're looking at the
famous bust of Nefertiti. It is a life-size,
full-color image, and it's really impressive. DR. BETH HARRIS: It's the
treasure of this museum. And it's been placed in a
rotunda with a large dome. She's been placed slightly
higher than eye level, so we look up at her. She's fabulously beautiful. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: She's
virtually the sole work of art in this very large space. Clearly, she is the focal point. DR. BETH HARRIS: Yeah,
it's quite theatrical. And unlike so many other
Egyptian sculptures, she wasn't intended for a tomb. She was found in the studio
of the artist who made her, Thutmose. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We think
that this sculpture was actually a model that he'd
created in order to work on other sculptures of her. That is, this sculpture
would function really as a three-dimensional sketch. DR. BETH HARRIS: As a prototype. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's right. And there are a few
reasons why that's thought. Not only was it
found in his studio, but it is incomplete
in a way that 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's a
temporary material, even wax, and so not the
kind of quality one would expect in a full-fledged
sculpture for the queen. DR. BETH HARRIS: Art
historians have discovered through scientific
analysis that she's made not just of
painted limestone but limestone
that's been covered with a very, very
thin layer of plaster. And that enabled the sculptor
to achieve really subtle effects modeling her face. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But then the
neck and the headdress plaster gets much thicker, and it
would have been much easier to work and create that very
fine detail on the plaster rather than the coarser
material of the limestone core. DR. BETH HARRIS: And
that's so important where we see the lines,
very subtle movement around her cheeks. What's so remarkable
about the sculpture is how sensitively carved
she is, how we really get a sense of skin and bone
and these lovely movements around her face. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: She's
tremendously elegant, but even beyond the simple
elegance of the contours of her face, her
high cheekbones, the shallow of her cheeks. DR. BETH HARRIS: Her long neck. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
Beautiful symmetry. A way in which line is unified
throughout the entire portrait bust. For instance, follow
the lines downward that are constructed by the
contours of her headdress [? that ?] tapers as it
moves towards her chin. So 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 this museum. But it really does create
this sense of continuity from the top of the
sculpture to its base. DR. BETH HARRIS:
What we're describing is a new ideal of
beauty that's really different from the tradition
of ancient Egyptian sculpture. And that's because
Nefertiti was the wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten,
who established a new religion in ancient Egypt
which was monotheistic instead of the traditional
polytheistic religion. And with that, he created
a new ideal of beauty that we see in the
sculptures that were created during his reign. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's right. I think we see this sculpture
really as a perfect exemplar. Nefertiti is
especially interesting because we believe
she did not simply function as the
wife of the pharaoh. She is shown in
so many portraits with the accoutrements
of the ruler that we think that she
actually shared power. DR. BETH HARRIS:
It's interesting, this period that we call the
Amarna period of Akhenaten's reign, where we have two
powerful women-- his mother, Tiye, and his wife, Nefertiti. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Both
represented as beautiful women, as powerful women, and
giving us a kind of insight into late Egyptian culture.