Princess

Former TitleDaughter of the Pharaoh Akhenaten

CultureEgyptian

Dateca. 1352-1336 B.C.E.

MediumLimestone with paint

DimensionsOverall: 15 1/2 × 6 1/4 × 7 1/4 inches (39.37 × 15.88 × 18.42 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number47-13

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

Ancient Art

Terms

DescriptionOne of the few surviving complete sculptures of an Amarna princess, this nude figure stands against a pillar with locked knees, her plump left leg slightly forward. Her cupped right hand clutches a pomegranate to her breasts while her relaxed left arm hangs at her side. She smiles serenely.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kanas City, Missouri, March 18 2023 - June 18 2023, hors cat.

Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Art from the Age of the Sun King, Brooklyn Museum of Art, September 19, 1973-November 25, 1973, no. 53.

Through Ancient Eyes: Egyptian Portraiture, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, April 21-July 31, 1988, no. 28.

Gallery Label

This daughter of Akh-en-Aten appears as a young teenager in the nude. Her fertility is emphasized. She holds a pomegranate-a symbol of fecundity-in her raised hand. Her arm frames and draws attention to her developing breasts. The narrowness of her shoulders emphasizes the breadth of her hips. Traces of black still outline her large eyes; her full lips were painted red. The large lock of hair to her side was a fashion reserved for the young.

The style-for example, the elongation of the skull-is unique to Akh-en-Aten's reign.

Provenance

With Paul Mallon, New York, by 1947;

Purchased from Mallon by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1947.

Published References

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 16.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 20.

Emma Swan Hill, “Some Ancient Egyptian Sculpture in American Museums,” Apollo 88, no. 77 (July 1968): 15-16, fig. 20.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 28.

Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten and Nefertiti (New York: Viking Press, 1973), 131, no. 53.

Donald Spanel, Through Ancient Eyes: Egyptian Portraiture (Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Museum of Art, 1988), 96-97, no. 28, fig. 28.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 13.

Dorothea Arnold, “The Workshop of the Sculptor Thutmose,” in The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt, Dorothea Arnold, James Allen, and L. Green (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996), 40.

Mogens Jørgensen, Egyptian Art from the Amarna Period (Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 2005), 25, fig. 7.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 8, fig. 16.

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