Leather Working, Tomb of Rekhmire

Art Historical Context

In the opulent Tomb of Rekhmire at Thebes, dating to Egypt's New Kingdom (ca. 1504–1425 B.C.), visitors to the afterlife were surrounded by vivid scenes of daily life and skilled craftsmanship. This facsimile captures bustling workshop of leather workers from Dynasty 18, where artisans tan hides, cut leather, and fashion goods like sandals and shields. Rekhmire, a powerful vizier under Pharaoh Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, commissioned these wall paintings to eternalize the trades that sustained Egypt's economy, offering a rare glimpse into ancient labor hierarchies and techniques. Rendered in meticulous detail by early 20th-century artist Nina de Garis Davies, this 1:1 scale reproduction uses tempera paint, ink, and paper to faithfully recreate the original tomb frescoes. Davies, renowned for her archaeological watercolors, worked with her husband Norman de Garis Davies to document endangered Egyptian tombs before modern threats like humidity could erase them. Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art via the Rogers Fund in 1931, it preserves the flat, stylized figures and vibrant colors typical of Egyptian art—bold outlines and symbolic proportions that prioritized clarity over realism. These scenes highlight leather's cultural role in ancient Egypt, from military gear to elite footwear, underscoring the society's reverence for skilled labor. A window into a vanished world, this artwork invites us to marvel at the ingenuity of pharaonic craftsmen.

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...