Plaque with nude female in a shrine niche

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone or terracotta plaques showing nude women in the niche of an Egyptian-form shrine were popular from 600-275 BC. Sometimes architectural pediments are carved and Bes figures or Hathor columns may be represented beside the niche; here traces of paint on the jambs can no longer be resolved into any particular form. The bobbed-haired voluptuous woman has a long history in the first millennium, but no precise identity. Small plaques like these are probably to be associated with the informal artworks distributed in conjunction with festivals celebrating a divine birth and fertility.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art