Relief of a Nobleman
Description
Object Label: The exact context of this relief is unknown. The anonymous noble's garment and elaborate wig with lotus flower fillet and intricate locks are perfect attire for an offering scene in the underworld. The relief clearly illustrates the legacy of the artistic style championed by Akhenaten, Egypt's so-called heretic pharaoh. The projection of the face and neck beyond the wig and the deep carving of the rear of the head are details that continued long after Akhenaten's reign. The elegant treatmnent suggests that the relief comes from a tomb at Saqqara, a vast cemetery in the region of Memphis. At the left a hand holds a sistrum (or rattle) and a flower. The missing person was surely a woman, either the wife or some other relative of the deceased. Caption: Relief of a Nobleman, ca 1292–1075 B.C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 20 3/16 × 17 1/4 × 3 1/2 in. (51.3 × 43.8 × 8.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 36.261. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
Stone relief fragment depicting an Egyptian nobleman figure in profile with detailed wig and clothing, accompanied by vertical inscriptions/columns beside the figure.
The image shows a weathered limestone relief panel in which a male nobleman is carved in profile facing right. He wears a broad, pleated headdress/wig with layered ribbing and a striped collar or cloak over the torso. A vertical register of carved signs and a partially visible staff-like/figure-holding element appear to the left side of the nobleman; the lower left includes a small seated/standing element beneath the staff, though details are incomplete due to damage. The right side preserves the nobleman’s head, ear, and stylized eye, with the garment folds and profile contours clearly cut. No legible full inscription text can be confidently read from the photograph; the signs appear to be hieroglyphic but are too eroded/fragmentary for accurate identification or transcription. No deities, royal cartouches, or named kings are clearly identifiable on the visible surface. Pigment is not clearly visible in the provided image, despite the catalogue claiming pigment, so the pigment visibility is uncertain.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 36.261 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3395 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.