King Amenhotep Ii
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[David Whitehouse]: The miniature head is the head of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, or
king, and we believe it’s a portrait of King Amenhotep II, who reigned as pharaoh
of Egypt between 1436 and 1411 BC. We know he’s a pharaoh because he’s wearing the
special headdress that only the Egyptian kings were allowed to wear. He’s an exquisite
miniature sculpture, one of the earliest pieces of glass sculpture known to exist, and small
though he is, he’s one of the treasures of this museum. Look very carefully at the
minute detail that the sculptor has managed to render on the surface of the glass. It
doesn’t look like glass, I know, but it is. It originally was bright blue glass, but
after centuries of burial in the ground, the surface has deteriorated and taken on that
stone-like appearance. Amenhotep was made using a technique know as “lost wax casting”:
the artist sculpted the head in wax, probably beeswax, and then covered the wax model with
very fine clay, very fine because the texture of the clay mustn’t interfere with the surface
of the face. The object was then fired at a low temperature, turning the clay into pottery,
and causing the wax to melt and run out of the interior. What you have therefore is a
mold for a head, exactly the same size and shape as the head sculpted in wax. The glassmaker
then introduces glass into the mold, probably as finely ground powder, filling it up and
at the same time heating it until those tiny grains of glass melt, and upon cooling, when
the mold is broken, there you have the head of the pharaoh in all his splendor�
