Painted Restoration of the Hathor-Head Frieze in the Tomb of Senenmut

Art Historical Context

Step into the vibrant world of ancient Egypt with this exquisite *Painted Restoration of the Hath-Head Frieze* from the Tomb of Senenmut, a masterful 20th-century facsimile by Nina de Garis Davies. Dating to the New Kingdom's 18th Dynasty (. 1479–1458 B.C.), the frieze adorned the tomb of Senenmut, a powerful architect and steward to Queen Hatshepsut one of Egypt's first female pharaohs. Rendered in tempera on paper at a precise 1:1 scale, Davies's work captures the rhythmic procession of Hathor-headed figures—embodying the goddess of love, music, and fertility—linked to themes of love poetry that infused Egyptian art with romantic and divine allure. Davies, a pioneering Egyptologist and artist active in the early 1900s, specialized in watercolor copies of fragile tomb paintings, preserving details that time and tomb robbers might erase. Her technique faithfully recreates the ancient Egyptians' bold colors, intricate hieroglyphs, and symbolic motifs using tempera, a medium blending pigment with egg yolk for luminous, durable results akin to the originals' frescoes. This frieze highlights Hathor's cultural role as protector of lovers and patron of joyous celebrations, reflecting the New Kingdom's artistic peak where tombs became poetic portals to eternity. Acquired through the Rogers Fund in 1937, it invites us to ponder Senenmut's devotion amid Hatshepsut's innovative reign, bridging millennia in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian collection.

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...