New Year Gift: Incense Spoon

Art Historical Context

This delicate tempera-on-paper facsimile captures an ancient Egyptian incense spoon created as a New Year gift during Dynasty 18 of the New Kingdom, around 1427–1400 B.C. Norman de Garis Davies, a pioneering Egyptologist and artist, produced the copy in 1913 at actual size to preserve the original’s intricate details for modern study. Such spoons, often inscribed with wishes for health and prosperity, were offered during festive celebrations that blended ritual and merriment, as hinted by the work’s evocative “Drink-and-Be-Merry” association. Davies’s meticulous technique reflects the early twentieth-century practice of creating accurate reproductions to document fragile artifacts before widespread photography. Working in tempera allowed him to faithfully render the spoon’s carved forms and hieroglyphs, ensuring that the symbolic motifs—likely evoking renewal and abundance—remained accessible to scholars and the public alike. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum’s Egyptian Art department, this small yet significant piece (just 7.5 cm high) bridges millennia, inviting visitors to appreciate both the ingenuity of New Kingdom artisans and the dedicated efforts of later copyists who safeguarded Egypt’s visual heritage.

About the Artist

Norman de Garis Davies · 1865–1941

Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) was a British Egyptologist and archaeological artist whose meticulous copies of ancient Egyptian tomb paintings constitute one of the most important records of pharaonic art ever made. Born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, he originally trained for the ministry before being drawn into Egyptology through his involvement with the Egypt Exploration Fund in the 1890...