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Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · architecture

Relief Showing a Seated Woman Smelling the Blossom of a Water Lily

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Relief, woman smelling water lily. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, reign of Amenemhat I possibly, ca. 1981–1952 B.C. Painted limestone. H. 42 × W. 27.9 × D. 7.5 cm (16 9/16 × 11 × 2 15/16 in.). From: Egypt. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1908.

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.

Fragmentary painted limestone relief showing the profile of a seated woman grasping a lotus blossom, with vertical lines of hieroglyphs on the left edge.

The image depicts a worn, broken relief panel with remnants of painted surface color (tan/yellow figures and red-brown background/edge). A seated woman is shown in right-facing profile wearing a braided/striated wig or head covering and a simple garment. She holds an outstretched lotus stem or large lotus blossom toward her nose, consistent with the act of smelling a water lily blossom. Her arms and hands are partially preserved, and the lower body is only partly intact due to damage at the bottom. On the left margin there is a vertical column of hieroglyphic signs carved in relief; several signs are preserved but are not fully readable from this image. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible.

religious Middle Kingdom (as catalogued); exact sub-phase unclear from image alone. fragmentary
Materials painted limestonepigment traces (red-brown and yellow/tan)
Signs hieroglyphic signs (partially preserved, unreadable in detail) ×12

Connections

Materials Painted Limestone

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116431345 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 08.202.42 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 555946 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access).
  • 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.