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Cherna as Nefertiti

Artist: Schotz, Benno, RSA · 1891-1984

Cherna as Nefertiti

The work was modelled by the artist aged 90, and depicts the artist’s daughter, aged fifty one, in the pose of, and wearing a similar head-dress, to…

The work was modelled by the artist aged 90, and depicts the artist’s daughter, aged fifty one, in the pose of, and wearing a similar head-dress, to the famous ancient Egyptian limestone bust of Queen Nefertiti. See also RSA 2020.0188 for the plaster version of this work.

The ancient Egyptian painted limestone bust of Nefertiti was unearthed in 1912 by German archaelogists and in terms of the preservation of its polychromy and its fineness of carving is one of the most famous pieces of ancient Egyptian art known. It was found, not associated with a tomb or funerary monument, but was found in the workshop in Armana of the favoured royal sculptor Thutmose. It is housed in the Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany.

When Benno Schotz’s first child, his daughter Simone Cherna Schotz was born in 1930, he resembled her features to those of Nefertiti, and in 1981 modelled her portrait in the pose of the ancient Egyptian bust in the Neues Museum.

© Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture