Head of the Queen of Egypt

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was still new when Kenyon Cox went there to study art from around the world. Without having to travel abroad, American artists could learn from examples of ancient sculpture in the Met’s collection of plaster casts. Cox copied an Egyptian portrait and, following the fashion for trompe l’oeil, or “fool the eye” painting, he created the illusion of paper tacked onto the sculpture’s base. His poem reads, “O Queen of Egypt with the lovely brow---Taya---thou smiled and to me it seems/The earth has owned before such smile; ‘Twas thou/Visitest Lionardo in his dreams.”