Relief portrait of an Amarna Princess. Ancient Egypt, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Amarnic P., Reign of Akhenaten, c. 1353 - 1336 B.C. MATERIAL: Limestone. SIZE: 8.5 cm Height and 9 cm Length, without stand, only the relief. Old wooden stand included. PROVENANCE: - Galerie Khepri R. Khawam et Cie, Paris, April 27, 1988. Keeps a copy of Roger Khawam's original certificate. - Private collection, France. The collector lived and worked in Egypt between the first two World Wars (1914 - 1945), acquiring and collecting different objects. - Sold by his heirs in 2022. CONDITION: Good state of preservation, Intact. DESCRIPTION: Parietal relief carved in a single block of limestone, although it is possible that it is an ostraca, a limestone flake, which has been used as a support for writing, drawing, or carving, both sketches that were later embodied in the walls in large dimensions, as if to learn the technique of drawing and carving, or as a support where the craftsman expressed himself more freely, such as the ones in which erotic images or animals appear acting as human beings. This relief is of exceptional interest because it is a subject, a royal princess of Akhenaten, of one of her daughters. A head in profile, facing to the right, with an exaggerated elongated skull shape, prominent nose and chin, thick lips, and a childhood braid, frame it in the characteristic and unmistakable art of the Amarna period (fig. 1). She is adorned with a circular earring. she she She is recognized as a princess, due to her childhood braid, with which she represented the daughters of Akhenaten (fig. 2), a characteristic element of her childhood. Throughout the history of Egypt, the child or childhood is represented in reliefs and figures with a shaved head and a braid on one side. The image of the girls with braids is almost unique in the Amarnian period, to represent the daughters of the royal marriage of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, as can be seen on the stelae and reliefs with the family scene (fig. 3). Given the scarce decoration of the braid, the locks of hair are not visible (figs. 4 - 5), together with the dimensions of the work, they may determine that it is an ostraca used as a sculptor's model. They are rectangular plaques and small-format round sculptures, between thirty-eight centimeters high, sculpted in white limestone and with one characteristic in common; an unfinished look. Test or study pieces, designed to improve the sculpting technique for the apprentice of the trade (fig. 6). As pharaoh and son of God, Akhenaten would assume this idea being the interlocutor between the people and the god Aten. However, one of the most exceptional features of this reign was the role played by the women who surrounded the pharaoh. These ladies were his wife, Nerferti, and the six daughters of the marriage, the princesses Meritatón, Meketamon, Anjesenamón, Neferneferuatón Tasherit, Neferneferura, and Setepenra. The royal family appears represented in the reliefs of the temples, tombs and palaces of Tell el-Amarna in everyday attitudes, on the one hand, reflecting affection and worship towards the god Aten. This type of representation was unique in Egyptian art. The great Royal wife Nefertiti appears with the same dimensions as her husband, something atypical as it reveals the equivalence of rank and importance. The princesses are also represented with a level of category hardly seen. Although in ancient Egypt women enjoyed the same rights and freedoms as men, in practice they were relegated to functions of less relevance and power. During the Amarni period, the women of the royal family had to play a very important role, as demonstrated by their appearance in a multitude of artistic elements. The number of representations of them and the accompanying titles attest to this. The daughters of the marriage that achieved the greatest power were the firstborn and the third. Meritatón, the first, stood out in Akhenaten's reign to the point that, even as a teenager, she married her own father and acquired the title of royal wife. It has also been speculated whether she was the natural successor later acquiring the masculine name of Pharaoh Semenejkara. A mystery still unresolved. Ankhesenamun (fig.4) was also a queen, first when she married her half-brother Tutankhamun and then her successor Pharaoh Ay. Some of the representations that were found in the grave goods of the tomb of the child king show his wife with the same canons as in the relief described here AMARNA PERIOD: The Amarna period essentially takes place during the reign of Akhenaten. When this eccentric son of Amenhotep III ascended to the throne around 1370 B.C., Egypt ruled a vast empire and was the richest nation in the civilized world. In just over a decade, Akhenaten reversed this situation. One of his first acts as king (he was then called Amenhotep IV) was the construction of a great sandstone chapel for the Aten, an ancient manifestation of the sun, in the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Thus displacing the cult of the main god Amun, in the capital, Thebes, and consequently removing power from the priestly class. It was the first monument in the Amarna style, presumably inspired by the king himself, in which extreme realism was the most striking feature. Realism had never before been applied to the representation of the human figure, it had always followed an idealized artistic canon. Along with this "truth in art", there is an endless representation of the cult of the Aten, the only official god (it was the famous change from polytheism to monotheism, at least of an official nature), as well as innumerable scenes of daily life, many of them some of them novel, never before embodied in reliefs or paintings, scenes of momentary action together with a realistic arrangement of groups of individuals. Perhaps most appealing are the depictions of flowers and natural settings. Scenes from the domestic life of the royal family become commonplace, when almost no examples are found outside of this period. Around the fifth year of his reign, he moved the capital from Thebes to El-Amarna, more than two hundred kilometers to the north, a desert and inhospitable land. This new capital was called Aketatón, place where the Great Temple of Aten was built; a large roofless building full of offering tables and many patios, because as a solar god, he must have bathed the entire complex with his light, next to it other smaller temples, palaces and pleasure buildings were erected. His officers and servants built their houses and formed a strong capital. The chronology of the Amarna period is complex. It is known that Akhenaten reigned for seventeen years, but there is considerable uncertainty when he began his reign. Some historians give him ten years of co-regency with his father Amenhotep III. Others deny any co-regent, and indeed it is hard to see how Akhenaten could have established himself as a co-regent. The problem is still unresolved. Even the date of his death, around 1353 B.C., is unclear. He had a co-regent and son-in-law, Smenkhare, who may have very briefly outlived him. If he did, he left little footprints. Tutankhamen, son and heir, ascended the throne that remained in Aketatón for four or five years. He eventually returned to Thebes, and to the worship of the old gods, eradicating his father's changes. Shortly after his death only faint traces of the Amarnian style survive and no trace of heresy in the religion. BIBLIOGRAPHY: - ALDRED, Cyril. Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Studio Publishing. New York. 1973. - COONEY, John Ducey. Amarna Reliefs from Hermopolis in American Collections. Brooklyn Museum. New York. 1965. - HANKE, Rainer. Amarna-Reliefs aus Hermopolis. ildesheimer ägyptologische Beiträge 2. Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1978. - ROBINS, Gay. The Art of Ancient Egypt. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. Massachusetts. 1997. PARALLELS: Fig. 1 Fresco with two princesses. Ancient Egypt, Tell el-Amarna, c. 1345 - 1335 BC. 165 cm long. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Fig. 2 Sculpture of a daughter of Akhenaten. Ancient Egypt, Tell el-Amarna, c. 1345 BC. 38 cm high. Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst. Munich. Fig. 3 Stele of the royal family of Akhenaten, Nefertiti with three daughters. Ancient Egypt, Tell el-Amarna, c. 1340 BC. 32.5 cm high. Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin. Inv. AM14145. Fig. 4 Relief or talatat with two princesses. Ancient Egypt, Tell el-Amarna, c. 1353 - 1336 BC. 29.2 cm long. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Inv. 1985.328.6. Fig. 5 Relief of a princess. Ancient Egypt, Tell el-Amarna, c. 1353 - 1336 BC. 22.5 cm high. British Museum, London. Inv. EA63964. Fig. 6 Ostraca with a princess or infant. Ancient Egypt, Tell el-Amarna, c. 1353 - 1336 BC. 22.5 cm high. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Notes: - The piece includes authenticity certificate. - The piece includes Spanish Export License. - The seller guarantees that he acquired this piece according to all national and international laws related to the ownership of cultural property. Provenance statement seen by Catawiki.