The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of September 1, 2024

Talatat: Portrait of Nefertiti

Talatat: Portrait of Nefertiti

c. 1353–1347 BCE
(1540–1069 BCE), Dynasty 18, reign of Akhenaten (1351–1334 BCE)
painted sandstone
Overall: 22 x 22.7 cm (8 11/16 x 8 15/16 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1959.188
Location: 107 Egyptian

Did You Know?

This relief comes from the short end of a talatat, a limestone block of standardized size used during the 18th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Akhenaten in the building of the Aton temples at Karnak and Akhetaten. The standardized size and their small weight made construction more efficient.

Description

The son of Amenhotep III, Akenhaten, 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—from which this relief comes—before he moved his capital to El Amarna. For reasons yet unknown, the figure of the Queen Nefertiti appears in these reliefs far more often that that of the king. Ironically, the Aten temples were dismantled to be used as foundations and fill for additions to the Great Temple of Amun, whom the Aten had briefly displaced.
  • -1959
    Mrs. Paul Mallon, Paris, France, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1959-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Windmuller-Luna, Kristen. "An Obsession with Heads: The Impact of African Arts, Anthropology, and Photography on the Works of Alberto Giacometti," Medium (May 2022). medium.com
    "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. 12, cover archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Published as: Akh-en-Aten. Reproduced: p. 4 archive.org
    Cooney, John D. "Amarna Art in the Cleveland Museum." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 1 (1968). pp. 7-8, cover www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Published as: Akhenaten. Reproduced: p. 4 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Adele Zeidman Silver. Guide to the Galleries. 1971. unpaginated
    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
    Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten and Nefertiti; [Catalog of an Exhibition Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences]. New York: Brooklyn Museum in association with the Viking Press, 1973. no. 23
    Kozloff, Arielle P. "Nefertiti, Beloved of the Living Disk." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 9 (1977). pp. 291-92, fig. 6 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
    Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten, King of Egypt. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1988. pl. 29
    Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999 Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 243
  • 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).
    Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Art from the Age of the Sun King. The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (organizer) (September 17-November 25, 1973); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (December 19, 1973-February 28, 1974).
    Akhenaten and Nefertiti, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY (September 17-November 25, 1973); The Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI (December 19, 1973-Febuary 28, 1974).
  • {{cite web|title=Talatat: Portrait of Nefertiti|url=false|author=|year=c. 1353–1347 BCE|access-date=01 September 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1959.188