Nefertiti Bust - Cultural Significance

Cultural Significance

The bust of Nefertiti has become "one of the most admired, and most copied, images from ancient Egypt", and the star exhibit used to market Berlin's museums. It is seen as an "icon of international beauty". "Showing a woman with a long neck, elegantly arched brows, high cheekbones, a slender nose and an enigmatic smile played about red lips, the bust has established Nefertiti as one of the most beautiful faces of antiquity." It is described as the most famous bust of ancient art, comparable only to the mask of Tutankhamun.

Nefertiti has become an icon of Berlin's culture. Some 500,000 visitors see Nefertiti every year. The bust is described as "the best-known work of art from ancient Egypt, arguably from all antiquity". Her face is on postcards of Berlin and 1989 German postage stamps.

In 1930, the German press described the Nefertiti bust as their new monarch, personifying it as a queen. As the "'most precious ... stone in the setting of the diadem' from the art treasures of 'Prussia Germany'", Nefertiti would re-establish the imperial German national identity after 1918. Hitler described the bust as "a unique masterpiece, an ornament, a true treasure", and pledged to build a museum to house it. By the 1970s, the bust had become an issue of national identity to both the German states – East Germany and West Germany – which were created after World War II. In 1999, Nefertiti appeared on an election poster for the green political party Bündis 90/Die Grünen as a promise for cosmopolitan and multi-cultural environment with the slogan "Strong Women for Berlin!" According to Claudia Breger, another reason that the Nefertiti bust became associated with a German national identity was its place as a rival to the Tutankhamun find by the British, who then ruled Egypt.

The bust became an influence on popular culture with Jack Pierce's make-up work on Elsa Lanchester's iconic hair style in the film Bride of Frankenstein being inspired by it. In the Italian film Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile (1961) Nefertiti is in love with the young sculptor Tumos (Thutmose), played by Edmund Purdom, who is a friend of prince Amenophis (Akhenaten). Tumos loses Nefeterti to Akhenaten, but preserves his love for her in the famous sculpture.