The famous bust of Nefertiti was found in the studio of the ancient Egyptian sculptor Thutmose.
Thutmose was a royal sculptor who worked in Akhetaten, the city founded by Pharaoh Akhenaten and now called Amarna. A German excavation team led by Ludwig Borchardt discovered his ruined workshop in December 1912. An ivory horse blinker bearing Thutmose’s name and title helped identify the building as his studio.
The painted limestone bust was found on the floor of a storeroom, among plaster portrait studies and other sculptural exercises. These pieces included representations of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, members of the royal family, and unidentified inhabitants of Amarna. The workshop’s contents suggest that sculptors used models and studies to plan official portraits and train apprentices.
The bust is usually dated to about 1345 BCE, during the Amarna Period. It is often described as unfinished because the left eye lacks its inlaid iris, although scholars disagree about whether this was deliberate. Thutmose is therefore the accepted answer, not Akhenaten, who was the patron rather than the sculptor.