Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Three Daughters
New Kingdom (Amarna), 18th Dynasty. c. 1353-1335 B.C.E. Limestone.
This small stele, probably used as a home altar, gives a seldom opportunity to view a scene from the private life of the king and queen.
House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three of their Daughters, limestone, New Kingdom, Amarna period, 18th dynasty, c.1350 BCE
Form:
- bas-relief carving
- limestone
- 32.5 cm high
Content:
- depicts King Akhenaten, his wife Nefertiti, seated on thrones
- holding three of their daughters on their laps
- Iconography:
- monotheistic god, "Aten", represented by the sun disc in the center
- Cobra in the sun disk implies SOLE leadership, ONLY ONE GOD (monotheism); Aten is the supreme deity
- ankhs (symbol of life) radiate out from the sun disc and reach toward the king and his wife
- this shows that Aten connects directly to the royal family, and to them alone
Function:
- this piece was meant to be a house altar
- the iconography of Aten and the depiction of the royal family of Akhenaten was propagated to encourage people to embrace the new monotheistic religion
- works such as this relief carving were present and central to everyday life; the house altar serves a practical function as well as an artistic one, so the underlying message becomes present and visible in the family's daily life.
Context:
- Egyptian art and culture generally experienced little change; the Amarna period is an exception
- pharaoh Akhenaten changed state religion from worship of god Amun to monotheistic worship of a new, sun god, Aten
- Pharaoh and his wife, Nefertiti, were made to be the only earthly representatives of this new god
- this upsets the entire Egyptian priesthood because it takes all their power and influence away and leaves it in the hands of the royal family.
- The change in religion was not made because of the pharaoh's real, religious beliefs, but for purely selfish reasons: to make himself and his family more powerful
- after Akhenaten dies, Egypt returns to traditional religion
- so, brief "blip" in Egyptian history
- There are also significant stylistic changes:
- domestic focus, tenderness
- more informal
- softer, less rigid and permanent than what we see in typical Egyptian artwork
- disproportionate bodies
- art historians once thought that perhaps Akhenaten and his family had some genetic disease that mutated the shape of their bodies
- however, it is now believed that the artist just did not have the skill to proportionally render the human body, and that the sloping, relaxed forms, were meant to be an encouragement of curvilinear forms in artwork
- Akhenaten encouraged this stylistic change from rectilinear forms to curvilinear as another hallmark of his "new era"
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ancient-mediterranean-ap/ancient-egypt-ap/v/house-altar-depicting-akhenaten-nefertiti-and-three-daughters
http://www.egyptian-museum-berlin.com/c52.php
