Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · statue

Sculptor's Trial Piece of Nefertiti

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Object Label: The style of art changed drastically at the beginning of the Amarna period, and both students and seasoned sculptors had to quickly adapt their skills. They practiced on pieces of limestone like this one. The lightly incised image of Nefertiti is in the more delicate style of late Amarna art. Nefertiti’s face almost completely lacks modeling, and her tall crown is abruptly cut off at the top, suggesting that the image was not meant to be part of a larger scene but rather served as a sculptor’s trial piece. Caption: Sculptor's Trial Piece of Nefertiti, ca. 1352–1332 B.C.E.. Limestone, 4 × 2 3/16 × 9 in. (10.2 × 5.6 × 22.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Society, 35.1997.

AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06

Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

A carved stone fragment featuring a profile of a human face.

The artifact is a stone slab with a carved relief depicting the profile of a human face, likely that of a royal figure, given the stylized features. The craftsmanship indicates careful attention to detail, particularly in the depiction of the eye and facial contour. The overall composition is simple, focusing on the head in profile, typical of ancient Egyptian artistic conventions.

royal New Kingdom fragmentary
Royals unknown
Materials limestone

Connections

Found at Tell el-Amarna
Royals Nefertiti
Materials Limestone

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 35.1997 tier-2
  • BKM-Object 45621 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.