Nefertiti Bust, Egyptian Queen Statue

It was never meant to be seen. It sat in a sculptor’s workshop at Amarna, in a room full of other heads, as the reference piece the studio worked from when a commission came in. A master model. The Egyptian equivalent of the drawing pinned above the bench.

Then the workshop was abandoned around 1332 BC and it sat in the sand for three thousand two hundred years until a German dig turned it up in December 1912.

The most famous face in the ancient world, by accident

Nobody built her a monument that survived. What survived was the practice piece, and it is now the reason most people can picture an Egyptian queen at all. There is a decent argument that no other single object has done more to shape how the ancient world looks in our heads.

The neck is the whole design

Long, upright, and carried forward of the shoulders, so the head is balanced out ahead of the base rather than sitting on top of it. That is what gives the piece its particular held stillness, like someone who has just been asked to stay very still and is doing it well.

It also makes it the tallest thing in the range, and the one that most needs a shelf it cannot be knocked off.

The face is deliberately unreadable

High wide cheekbones, a long straight nose, a small full mouth with the faintest downward set at the corners. Lidded eyes looking level and forward at nothing in particular. She is not welcoming you and she is not dismissing you. Every person who looks at it decides for themselves what she is thinking, which is exactly why it has held attention for a century.

The crown

Tall, flat topped and flaring, with a headband running round it and a uraeus cobra rising at the centre front, worked into the band rather than standing free of it. It is a plain, confident shape and it does most of the work in silhouette.

Left unpainted

Bare bone-white, so the piece reads as carving. The original was painted, and vividly, which is the version a hand-finished edition will eventually go after. That is a slow job and it is not ready yet.

The numbers

• Printed and finished by hand in Australia.
• WEIRDO 007. That number belongs to this design and will never be given to another.
• Height to be confirmed.

Looking after it

Top heavy by design. Give it a shelf where a sleeve will not catch the crown, and lift it by the shoulders rather than the head or the crown. Dust with a soft dry cloth. Out of direct sun, because PLA softens around 60 degrees.

Ordering one now

Made to order. Order it and yours goes into the next batch, usually within a fortnight, and you are emailed when it goes on the bed and again when it ships.

Change your mind before it is printed and we refund it in full without asking why. After that you still have every right you have under Australian Consumer Law, which we cannot exclude and would not want to.