AN EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE HEAD OF AMENHOTEP III

NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, REIGN OF AMENHOTEP III, 1391-1353 B.C.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE HEAD OF AMENHOTEP III
NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, REIGN OF AMENHOTEP III, 1391-1353 B.C.
With youthful, idealizing features, his almond-shaped eyes with the cosmetic lines indicated, his brows plastically rendered, his full lips marked by a vermilion line and characteristic thicker upper lip, wearing a Blue Crown fronted by a coiled uraeus, its head originally inlaid in wood, its undulating body extending up along the crown of the head, traces of a back pillar preserved
4 in. (10.2 cm.) high

Provenance

European Private Collection, acquired in the 1980s.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 11 June 2003, lot 13.

Literature

T. Hardwick, "The Iconography of the Blue Crown in the New Kingdom," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 89, 2003, p.141, no. VV.

Lot Essay

Images of Amenhotep III exhibit a wide stylistic range and broad spectrum of media from bronze to clay to stone, hard and soft; see pp. 125-214 in Kozloff and Bryan, Egypt's Dazzling Sun, Amenhotep III and His World. For an example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with similar treatment of the details of the Blue Crown, or crown of action, see no. 9 in Kozloff and Bryan, op. cit. For a bronze head of this pharaoh see no. 23 in Vassilika, Fitzwilliam Museum Handbooks, Egyptian Art. For a similar head in terracotta see pp. 174-175 in Tiradritti, Egyptian Treasures from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

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