Glazed Tile with Palms
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
John Smibert's Boston portraits were often plain in composition and color, and stiff in expression (like this work). Nevertheless, for a time he was the most experienced and influential artist in New England. The Scottish-born Smibert had trained in London and traveled through Europe before settling in Boston. His studio and "colour shop" (art-supply store) contained his copies after important European works of art. Such images were crucial in inspiring and instructing early colonial artists, who had little access to art instruction and no museum collections at their disposal.
Caption
Glazed Tile with Palms, ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E.. Faience, 4 1/4 × 3 5/8 in. (10.8 × 9.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 52.148.1. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.52.148.1_wwg7.jpg)
Title
Glazed Tile with Palms
Date
ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E.
Dynasty
late Dynasty 18
Period
New Kingdom, Amarna Period
Geography
Possible place collected: Tell el-Amarna, Egypt
Medium
Faience
Classification
Dimensions
4 1/4 × 3 5/8 in. (10.8 × 9.2 cm)
Credit Line
Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
Accession Number
52.148.1
Rights
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.
Frequent Art Questions
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.
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