Fragment of a Queen's Face

Follow the curve from the cheek toward the lips. This small piece of yellow jasper keeps the smooth surface of a royal face, while almost everything around it has disappeared. Light follows the polished cheek down to the edge of the mouth. The face once belonged to a statue assembled from several materials. A surviving join at the back helped attach the stone part to the rest of the figure. The body may have been carved in a pale stone to suggest a white garment. Color could therefore come from the materials themselves as well as from paint. The queen has no secure name. Nefertiti and Kiya, women connected with the pharaoh Akhenaten’s court, are among the proposed identifications. The fragment belongs to that period of Egypt’s New Kingdom. Its surviving features do not settle which woman it represents. Return to the corner of the mouth. The cheek turns gently toward it, with the lips meeting along a fine line in the jasper.