<em>Floral Inlay</em>, ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E. Faience, 2 1/2 × 1 15/16 in. (6.3 × 5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 49.8. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.49.8_wwg7.jpg)

Floral Inlay, ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E. Faience, 2 1/2 × 1 15/16 in. (6.3 × 5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 49.8. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.49.8_wwg7.jpg)

DOWNLOAD

Download our app and ask your own questions during your visit. Here are some that others have asked.

I've never seen ancient art like this before. Is this considered more rare than the limestone pieces from that era?

I'm not sure how frequent inlays like this are found, but I do know that they are often quite fragmentary thus making them not as interesting or informative to display. Which explains why you don't see them as much. Plus these inlays come from the city of Amarna where people actually lived rather than a tomb or temple like much of the objects on view from ancient Egypt.

The material that they are made out of was actually quite common. You'll see many small objects like figurines--usually blue--made out of faience as well.

Wanted to know more about this. Also, where is this region?

This case shows a sampling of faience inlays from Amarna, the capital of the era in which Akhenaten and Nefertiti ruled and worshipped the deity the sun disc, Aten. The city was called Akhetaten in ancient times and was located to the east of the Nile in central Egypt, in what is now the Minya governate.

The material you're looking at, faience, is something you will see throughout Egyptian art. Often green-blue, faience is made from a quartz-based paste molded and fired at a high temperature, with a glaze of powdered glass mixed with liquid.

Floral Inlay

Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

On View: Amarna Period, Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Gallery, 3rd Floor

The walls of the Great Palace at el Amarna were decorated with small inlays arranged to form complex scenes. In many of these scenes, members of the royal family present great formal bouquets to the Aten. This inlay—a yellow persea fruit and a lotus flower—was the uppermost element of one of these bouquets.

MEDIUM Faience

Possible Place Collected: Tell el-Amarna, Egypt

DATES ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E.

DYNASTY late Dynasty 18

PERIOD New Kingdom, Amarna Period

DIMENSIONS 2 1/2 × 1 15/16 in. (6.3 × 5 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 49.8

CREDIT LINE Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund

PROVENANCE Archaeological provenance not yet documented, probably from Tell el-Amarna, Egypt; by 1949, purchased at el Hag Kandil, Egypt from an unidentified source by Michel Abemayor of New York, NY; 1949, purchased from Michel Abemayor by the Brooklyn Museum.

Provenance FAQ

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Polychrome faience lotus inlay. Open flower with petals in purple-blue grading into white, calyx in light green. At each side of lotus, a green bud. Inserted in center of lotus, a Mimusops fruit in dark blue and yellow glaze. Reverse of object undecorated, flat and glazed white. Interior hollow, pierced at center top and bottom. Apparently a detail from a composite inlay possible representing a “stabstrauss”. Condition: Chipped at rear of base. Glaze intact.

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Amarna Period, Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Gallery, 3rd Floor

CAPTION Floral Inlay, ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E. Faience, 2 1/2 × 1 15/16 in. (6.3 × 5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 49.8. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.49.8_wwg7.jpg)

IMAGE installation, West Wing gallery 7 installation, CUR.49.8_wwg7.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2009

"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.

RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY

You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

RECORD COMPLETENESS

Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.

Download our app and ask your own questions during your visit. Here are some that others have asked.

I've never seen ancient art like this before. Is this considered more rare than the limestone pieces from that era?

The material that they are made out of was actually quite common. You'll see many small objects like figurines--usually blue--made out of faience as well.

Wanted to know more about this. Also, where is this region?