Guests at a Banquet
A.D. 1920–21; original ca. 1390–1349 B.C.
Medium
Tempera on paper
Dimensions
facsimile: h. 91.5 cm (36 in); w. 42.5 cm (16 3/4 in); scale 1:1; framed: h. 94.6 cm (37 1/4 in); w. 45.4 cm (17 7/8 in)
Classification
Facsimile, Nebamun (TT 181), Ipuky, banquet; Drink-and-be-Merry
Period
Twentieth Century; original New Kingdom
Department
Egyptian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1930
Accession Number
30.4.105
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Guests at a Banquet** This vibrant facsimile, created by British artist Nina de Garis Davies in A.D. 1920–21, faithfully reproduces a wall painting from ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, Dynasty 18 (ca. 1390–1349 B.C.). Titled *Guests at a Banquet*, it captures a lively scene of men and women reveling together, evoking the tag "Drink-and-Be-Merry." Rendered in tempera on paper at a precise 1:1 scale (91.5 x 42.5 cm), Davies's work preserves the original's vivid colors and intricate details from a tomb context, acquired through the Rogers Fund in 1930 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian...
About the Artist
Nina de Garis Davies · 1881–1965
Nina de Garis Davies, born Anna Macpherson Cummings on January 6, 1881, in Salonika, Greece, to English-Scottish parents Cecil J. Cummings and Sarah Macintosh Tannoch, showed early artistic talent as the eldest of three daughters. After her father's death in 1894, the family relocated to Scotland and then London, where she trained at the Slade School of Art. In 1906, at age 25, a holiday trip to E...