Statue of Akhenaten and Nefertiti
This small, painted votive statue depicts King Akhenaten and his Great Wife Nefertiti. The king and queen are shown hand in hand (a notedly unusual pose in New Kingdom artwork), as if walking forward together.
They stand quite far apart, entirely unbending as they stare straight ahead, without the ghost of a smile. They are clothed in very fine, close-pleated linen, and wear broad collars on their shoulders. As in most of their official portraits, the king wears the Blue Khepresh Crown and the queen a tall flat-topped headdress.
Under Akhenaten’s religious vision, the traditional pantheon of gods was eclipsed by the singular radiance of the Aten, yet this divine presence was perceived as remote and transcendent, its radiant beams stretching down to bless the earth. To bridge this gap between the celestial Aten and humanity, Akhenaten and his family (particularly Nefertiti and their daughters) were portrayed as the exclusive intermediaries, the sole mortals graced by Aten’s favour. In temple and domestic iconography, they were shown receiving the sun’s life-giving rays, often with the distinctive motif of hands ending in ankhs offering them breath and vitality.
In the homes of those occupying the city of Akhetaten (Tel el-Amarna), small votive statues and stelae depicted the royal family in acts of devotion to the Aten. These images were not merely decorative but served as intercessory focal points for the populace. Egyptians would place offerings, incense, and prayers before these depictions, effectively petitioning the royal family to act as their advocates with the Aten. It was believed that the king and his family, basking in the Aten’s immediate radiance, could secure blessings, health, and prosperity.
These household shrines and small sanctuaries reinforced the theological centrality of the royal family, blurring the lines between divinity and royalty. In doing so, Akhenaten’s system mirrored traditional Egyptian practices of appealing to intermediaries (such as priests and local gods) but radically focused all devotion upon his own family as the living conduits of divine favour. It is possible and quite likely this small figure may have been one of those statues used to bless the residents of Akhetaten.
Related: Stela of Akhenaten and his family
Sculptures of Nefertiti have been found intentionally smashed to pieces or with their heads removed, Aidan Dodson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bristol in the U.K, wrote in his book “Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: Her Life and Afterlife” (The American University in Cairo Press, 2020). “Many were smashed in antiquity, sometimes to smithereens, at best they were decapitated.” Despite her modern reputation as one of Egypt’s most famous queens, Nefertiti didn’t get the same respect from ancient Egyptians in the time after she died; her statues were smashed to pieces in retribution for her husband’s failed religious revolution.
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Amarna Period, reign of Akhenaten, ca. 1353-1336 BC. Now in the Louvre. E 15593
