Art › Berlin › The Neues Museum
Bust of Nefertiti
The painted queen of Egypt, found in a sculptor’s workshop where she had stood for 3,300 years.
Nefertiti was the great royal wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who moved Egypt’s capital to a new city at Amarna. Her bust, with its tall blue crown, was probably a model for other portraits of her, which is why one eye was never inlaid.
A German expedition led by Ludwig Borchardt found it on 6 December 1912 in the ruins of the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose. It has been in Berlin since 1913, on show since 1924, and Egypt has asked for it back many times. Stand before it in 3D ›
