I think though that defining things as art by the producer is too restrictive. Obviously Lascaux isn't produced as art in any sense we understand it, but then even allowing for a Greco-Roman sensibility. Is the Pieta on levels not meant to please a deity in some ways? Art is a slippery concept so perhaps we can restrict ourselves to the idea that beauty, and an attempt to achieve motivated many Egyptians who created visual images?
I honestly don't know. The one 'artwork' most mention as 'iconic beauty' in connection with Egypt, is the well known bust of Nefertiti found in the remains of the sculptor Thutmose's workshop at Akhetaten (Amarna) by Borchart. It's on disply in a room of itrs' own in Berlin....and people such as Sigmund Freud, Hitler (yes, Hitler), Dali, Thompson and umpteen others have rhapsodised over its' near perfection and declared it the finest sculpture in the Ancient World.....but....and, there's always a 'but'. Most Egyptologists will tell you that the piece isn't finished - and nowhere near it! It seems to have simply been left on a shelf when the city was abandoned - probably when Nefertiti herself, ruling as Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten, returned to Thebes at her husband's death. Over time, the shelf collapsed, and the bust, along with several other superb examples of Thumose's work - all unfinished - fell on the floor of the workshop and a sandstorm hid them. What we percieve as flawless beauty wasn't what Thutmose had intended....so which 'art' is correct? Even the statues and obelisks which adorned temples are not what they were meant to be. We see sandstone statues, diorite and granite columns, walls with beautifully inscised scenes....when what we miss is that each surface, column, wall, statue and obelisk was originally painted with a riot of whites, greens, blues, blacks and every other colour as well. Which is art: what we see now or what was once there?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti_Bust
