c. 1345 BCE · Amarna (Akhetaten), Egypt
The Bust of Nefertiti: the light of Amarna art
The painted limestone bust of Akhenaten's queen Nefertiti is the most striking portrait of the Amarna interlude — the brief century when Egypt broke its millennial canon.
Carved around 1345 BCE in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, the bust was unearthed in 1912 by a German expedition at Amarna. Roughly 48 cm tall, its limestone core is coated in a thin layer of stucco; the pigments remain vivid today.
Nefertiti's husband Akhenaten had refounded Egyptian religion around a single god, the Aten (sun disc) — and reshaped art alongside. The idealised, rigidly symmetrical figures of the millennial canon softened for a single generation: natural proportions, a slender chin, a long neck, details drawn from real faces. The bust is the emblem of that short opening.
The left eye was never inlaid — many scholars conclude the work was a master model, intended for the workshop to copy. Now in Berlin's Neues Museum, it is also the focus of a long-running custody dispute between Egypt and Germany.
Location
Amarna (Akhetaten), Egypt · © OpenStreetMap
Sources
- Bust of Queen Nefertiti — Neues Museum, Berlin — Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
- The Bust of Nefertiti — Smarthistory — Smarthistory