The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 5, 2023

Talatat: Nefertiti Offers to the Aten

1353–1347 BC

Egypt, Karnak, New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep IV, 1353-1337 BC

Painted sandstone

Overall: 20.5 x 41.2 cm (8 1/16 x 16 1/4 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1959.186

Location

107 Egyptian

Fun Fact

Just in front of her nostril is the ankh or symbol of life, being given to her by Aten the sun, so that she may breathe in the god's gift of life.

Description

The son of Amenhotep III, Akenaten, brought about the short-lived "monotheistic" revolution in Egyptian religion near the end of Dynasty 18. The young king constructed a temple complex to the Aten, the Sun Disk, at Karnak—where this relief originated—before he moved his capital to El Amarna. For reasons unknown, the figure of the Queen Nefertiti appears in these reliefs far more often than that of the king. Ironically, the Aten temples were dismantled to be used as foundations and fill for adaptations to the Great Temple of Amun, whom the Aten had briefly displaced.

Provenance
-1959
Mrs. Paul Mallon, Paris, France, Sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
1959-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
"Annual Report for the Year 1959." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 47, no. 6 (1960). p. 132 www.jstor.org
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Martha L. Carter. Egyptian Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: The Museum, 1963. p. 11, pl. 13 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 4 archive.org
Cleveland Museum of Art. Selected Works: Cleveland Museum of Art. 1967. pl. 4
Cooney, John D. "Amarna Art in the Cleveland Museum." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 1 (1968). pp. 7-9, fig. 6 www.jstor.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 4 archive.org
Porter, Bertha, Rosalind Louisa Beaufort Moss, and Ethel W. Burney. Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings II, II. Oxford [etc.]: Clarendon Press, 1972. p. 40
Kozloff, Arielle P. "Nefertiti, Beloved of the Living Disk." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 9 (1977). p. 293, fig. 9 www.jstor.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 15 archive.org
Smith, William Stevenson, William Kelly Simpson, and Cinamon Gerald. The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt. 1981. p. 309, fig. 299
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 4 archive.org
Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999 Mentioned: p. 241-242; Reproduced: p. 241
Exhibition history

Exposition Akhénaton. Musée d'art et d'histoire, Genéve 3, Switzerland (organizer) (October 16, 2008-February 1, 2009); Fondazione Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy (February 26-June 14, 2009).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1959.186