A Nummulitic Limestone Figure of a Princess, Tell el-Amarna, 18th Dynasty, Reign of Akhenaten, circa 1347-1345 B.C.

probably Meretaten or Meketaten, daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, standing with her left leg advanced, her fragmentary right arm folded beneath her breasts, her face with rounded chin, full outlined lips, and large naturally formed eye once delineated with pigment, the earlobe indented, the recesses behind her ear perhaps to secure a braided sidelock, the right hand of a royal sister, next to whom she once stood, embracing her shoulder.

Leo Mildenberg, Zurich, 1960
Spink & Son, Ltd., London, November 1960

Fragmentary as shown, repaired (perhaps not very accurately) across lower neck and lower abdomen, areas of fill along breaklines especially in back
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Bernard V. Bothmer photographed the present figure in Zurich in 1960 (The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Archives, neg. no. L948-3A ).

The scale, style, material, posture of the present figure, and especially the hand on her shoulder, all suggest that she once stood on one of the boundary stelae with which King Akhenaten surrounded his new city of Akhetaten, or "Horizon of the Aten" (modern Tell el-Amarna). These monuments, carved out of the cliffs and escarpments surrounding the city to the north, east, and south (the western limit being provided by the Nile), were each engraved with a lengthy inscription of a binding, magical nature designed to prevent the expansion of the city beyond a certain sacred perimeter, and allowed only for the burials of members of the royal family to be located outside of it. Above each inscription was a large scene, carved in sunk relief within the lunette, depicting the king and queen and their daughters worshipping the Aten. On most examples, on either side of the stela proper, was a group of engaged three-dimensional figures representing the king and queen standing side by side and accompanied by two princesses wearing large sidelocks. Each one of these monuments, of which sixteen have been recorded so far, functioned not only as a boundary marker of a religious nature, stating that Akhenaten had responded to a direct order from the Aten when founding the city where he did, but also as a powerful dynastic statement establishing in perpetuity Akhenaten's family as the only legitimate embodiment of royal power.

In an extract from a letter concerning the present figure and dated September 26th, 1960, the Egyptologist and leading authority on the Age of Akhenaten, Cyril Aldred (then curator at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh), wrote: "I can tell you that the piece representing one of the royal daughters almost certainly comes from Stela P at Tell el-amarna, which was blown up by Copts in the early years of this century under the common delusion that it was a doorway into the rock concealing the usual Aladdin's cave. On each side of the Stela was a group of statuary and this fragment seems to be all that is left of one of such groups." However, a recently published detailed description of the remains of stela P (W. J. Murnane and C.C. van Siclen, The Boundary stelae of Akhenaten, London and New York, 1993, pp. 129-130) shows that both pairs of princesses on each side of this stela were holding hands, whereas the hand on the present figure's right shoulder indicates that she was joined in embrace with her sister. Stelae A and B are the only two recorded boundary stelae showing pairs of embracing princesses standing to the left of the stela proper from the viewer's standpoint: in this arrangement only does the princess standing on the outside, closest to the far end of the whole monument, have her sister's right hand on her own right shoulder (see Murnane and van Siclen, op. cit., pp. 113-117, for relevant descriptions of Stelae A and B; for a 19th Century engraving of Stela A showing the relationships between the figures more clearly than any published photographs see N. de G. Davies, The Rock-tombs of El Amarna, Part V: Smaller Tombs and Boundary Stelae, London, 1908, pl. XLIII, and D. Arnold, The Royal Women of Amarna, New York, 1996, fig. 103 [detail]).

Based on the names of the princesses carved on the boundary stelae (mostly Meretaten and Meketaten, sometimes Ankhesenpaaten) the boundary stelae of Tell el-Amarna were probably carved in the years 6 to 8 of Akhenaten's reign (see Murnane and van Siclen, op. cit., p. 178).

Cyril Aldred writes of a closely related figure of a princess, holding what may be a pomegranate beneath her breasts, in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1973, p.131, no. 52): "One of the achievements of Amarna artists was the representation of children as children and not, as had been customary in Egypt, as adults on a miniature scale. This statuette, with the disproportionately large head of infancy...gives an impression of immature charm and innocence, which does not require conventional symbols, such as sidelock or finger in the mouth, to lend conviction. It is in the Amarna age that figures of maidens holding fruit or birds or small animals make their appearance. When the royal family assembled to receive the tribute of the nations in Year 12, the younger daughters carried baby gazelles in their arms, and at the same ceremony Ankhesenpaaten was shown holding pomegranates, one of which she offered to Meketaten. The pomegranate, introduced into Egypt from Asia during the earlier New Kingdom, may have had deeper significance, suggesting the protection of a goddess of love and fertility. At Tell el Amarna, of course, no such goddesses were recognized, although the age spoke much of love, but perhaps it was the woman of the royal family who were regarded as natural substitutes for such deities." 

Denys Miller Sutton (1917-1991) assumed the role of editor of the London-based arts magazine Apollo in 1962, and retained this position for about 25 years, during which he considerably expanded the scope of the publication, addressing sensitive art preservation issues, attracting new contributors among prominent art historians and writers, writing many articles himself, and devoting several issues to the collections of museums around the world. His strong and unrelenting interest in the visual arts was a lifelong pursuit: he served as secretary of the international commission for the restitution of cultural material after World War II, worked as an art critic for Country Life and the Financial Times, authored several books on painting, including works on Watteau, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Picasso, and Whistler, and organized several exhibitions abroad such as shows on Constable and Titian in Tokyo. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (vol. 53, Oxford, 2003, p. 382) describes him as an "astute collector of art."