Statue of Nakhthorheb, quartzite, Egypt, Dynasty 26 (detail)

Getty VillaPacific Palisades, Los Angeles

Sculpted Portraits from Ancient Egypt

Last day24 January 2024 – 9 November 2026Free

Striking stone portraits of court officials and priests from Egypt's 26th Dynasty (664-526 BCE), on long-term loan from the British Museum.

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On now All of November 2026

Nakhthorheb has been kneeling in quartzite since about 590 BCE: head slightly raised, hands flat on his thighs, the hint of a sickle-shaped smile. He weighs 220 kilos and was carved to kneel before Osiris forever.

You walk into a room of dark stone figures, and nearly all of them are bureaucrats: priests and officials of Egypt's 26th Dynasty, no pharaohs. Their sculptors copied styles from Egypt's own distant past. Everything is on loan from the British Museum, much of it usually in storage, including a granite sarcophagus of about 12,000 pounds. Curator Sara Cole told the Daily Trojan that likeness was never the point: the statues "convey the essential qualities of a person." In a city that runs on headshots, one portrait here has no head and is still holding up his goddess.

It closes 9 November, whatever older listings say about 2027. It's free with the Villa's timed reservation (parking extra), with labels in English and Spanish, non-flash photos allowed and a free 30-minute tour.

Look for

Nakhthorheb kneeling before Osiris
Look past the plain headdress and kilt at the body: a soft, fleshy torso carved as three swelling curves, with a teardrop-shaped bulge around the navel.
Henat and his shrine
A black basalt man, his head long lost, kneels holding a small shrine with the goddess Neith inside it.
The sarcophagus lid of Nesisut
A granite coffin lid shaped like a body, made for a priest whose titles were Keeper of the Storehouse and Servant of the King.
The ushabtis of Ankhhap and Pakhaas
Two small funerary figurines, buried as stand-ins their owners could summon to work for them in the afterlife.