Menna's Daughter Offering to her Parents, Tomb of Menna

Art Historical Context

In the Tomb of Menna at Luxor, Egypt, this touching scene captures a young daughter presenting offerings—likely food and drink—to her seated parents, Menna and wife. Dating to the New Kingdom's Dynasty 18 (ca. 1400–1352 B.C.), during the reigns of Thutmose IV or Amenhotep, such tomb paintings served a vital afterlife purpose. They magically ensured the deceased family's eternal nourishment and prosperity, reflecting ancient Egyptian beliefs in the ka (life force) sustained by daily rituals. Menna, a high-ranking scribe and overseer of fields, commissioned these vibrant wall decorations to immortalize his household's harmony and devotion. This life-size facsimile, created in 1922 by the renowned Egyptologist Nina de Garis Davies using tempera on paper, preserves the original's vivid colors and intricate details with remarkable fidelity (1:1 scale). Davies, who worked with her husband Norman de Garis Davies, produced these copies to document fragile tomb art threatened by decay and tourism. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian Art department, it highlights themes of familial love and women's roles, echoed in the tomb's poetic inscriptions evoking affection and legacy. A window into 18th Dynasty domestic life, it invites us to ponder the enduring power of art across millennia.

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...