Seated Woman

Art Historical Context

This exquisite facsimile of a seated woman was created by Nina de Garis Davies, a pioneering British artist renowned her meticulous copies of ancient Egyptian wall paintings. Working in the early twentieth century, Davies used tempera on paper to details from tombs dating to Dynasty 17–18, a transitional era spanning the Second Intermediate Period and the dawn of the New Kingdom. Her work captures the elegant profile, vibrant pigments, and graceful posture typical of Egyptian figural art, allowing modern viewers to appreciate compositions that remain in situ or have suffered damage over millennia. Davies’s copies hold particular value for the Metropolitan Museum, where they serve as both scholarly records and accessible artworks. By faithfully rendering the original’s scale and color, she preserved the cultural significance of these images—often depictions of daily life, offerings, or idealized figures meant to ensure eternity for the deceased. The medium of tempera, applied with fine brushes, mirrors the ancient technique while making the scene portable for study and display. Visitors can admire how such facsimiles bridge three thousand years, offering insight into the artistic conventions and spiritual beliefs of early New Kingdom Egypt.

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...