Bust of Ankhhaf

Attribution:

JCB Walsh

Key Dates

2520

The bust was likely made during the reign of Khafre, c. 2520-2494 BC. It was excavated by the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition in 1925, then assigned to the MFA collection on July 7, 1927.

Key People

The bust depicts Prince Ankhhaf, an Egyptian prince - son of pharaoh Sneferu - who served as vizier and overseer of works to the Old Kingdom pharaoh Khafre. It is assumed to be the work of a master of ancient Egyptian art, identity unknown. In recent years, Dr Zahi Hawass - Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities - has named the artefact among a list of five famous Egyptian antiquities around the world that he intends to see repatriated.

Key People:

Pharaoh Khafra

Zahi Hawass

The Bust of Ankhhaf is a very unique work of ancient Egyptian art, because it depicts a life-like representation of its subject - the prince Ankhhaf, who may have overseen the building of the second pyramid and carving of the sphinx -
in an age when most artistic representations of people were heavily-stylised and idealistic.

The sculpture is made from a limestone core, covered with plaster which has been moulded by hand and then painted red. He wears a very stern expression and clearly wanted to be remembered as a serious and powerful man, although his slightly uneven mouth lends him a slightly aloof smirk.

The bust was discovered in Ankhhaf's tomb in the Giza Necropolis. It should technically have gone to the Museum of Cairo, under the terms of the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts' contract with the Egyptian government. However, it was awarded to Boston by the Antiquities Service in gratitude for the Expedition's painstaking work on the tomb of Queen Hetepheres (who may have been Ankhhaf's mother).

Dr Hawass has disputed the legality, or at least the morality of this agreement, and argued that the Bust of Ankhhaf should rightly be given back to Egypt by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Origin & Collection

Discovered at:

Pyramids of Giza

On display at:

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Additional information on display location:

Gardiner Martin Lane Gallery (Egyptian Old Kingdom Gallery)

Reference Number:

27.442

Physical properties

Height:

50.48cm