Item Carter MSS i.G.44C - Thebes. Valley of the Kings. KV 62. Tomb of Tutankhamun: scene from front of box (no. 551), Nina de Garis Davies tracing

Identity area

Reference code

Carter MSS i.G.44C

Title

Thebes. Valley of the Kings. KV 62. Tomb of Tutankhamun: scene from front of box (no. 551), Nina de Garis Davies tracing

Date(s)

  • 1951 (Creation)

Level of description

Item

Extent and medium

1 tracing-paper sheet

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

British artist and copyist; born Salonika, 6 Jan. 1881, daughter of Cecil J. Cummings and Sarah Tannoch; she was trained at the Slade School of Art and the Royal College of Art under Walter Crane; her interest in Egypt was aroused when she visited Alexandria in 1906, and she married Norman de G. Davies the following year, with whom she was to record a great many Theban tombs; an excellent artist she went to great pains to reproduce colours as exactly as possible, and achieved remarkable results in the days before colour photography; she used egg tempera when making copies of scenes instead of merely water colours; in all she worked at Thebes for over thirty years, 1908-39; three of the five vols. of The Theban Tombs Series were entirely her work, the others had drawings by her husband as well, while Gardiner edited the series; Nina Davies also copied at Amarna, 1925-6, and at Beni Hasan, 1931-2; in 1923 Gardiner exhibited a collection of her copies at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and this was followed by the publication of two folio vols. of Ancient Egyptian Paintings, 1936; in 1954 a miniature Penguin edition of some of these was illustrated with small reproductions and had a text by the artist; in 1958 she published a series of paintings from originals in the British Museum and the Bankes Collection; she, with her husband, also helped Gardiner in selecting and making drawings of good representative hieroglyphs of the XVIIIth Dynasty to use in his hieroglyphic fount, and published Picture Writing in Ancient Egypt, 1958; she contributed a number of articles to the JEA and left two of her copies to the Egyptian Department of the British Museum and other copies together with a shabti figure to the Ashmolean Museum; her Egyptological books were bequeathed to the Griffith Institute and to the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford; she died in Hinksey Hill, Berkshire, 21 April 1965.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

Nina de Davies' tracing of a scene with Tutankhamun seated on a chair holding an armed bow shooting fish and fowl, with Ankhesenamun squatting on a cushion at King's feet, on a panel from the front of box (no. 551), found in the Annex, tomb of Tutankhamun, KV 62, Valley of the Kings, Thebes.
Probably traced from Davies drawing, see Carter MSS i.G.44B.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

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Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Property of the Griffith Institute. No restrictions.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

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Language and script notes

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

  • Scale not recorded [1:1?]
  • 23.7 x 47.8 cm
  • Tracing paper
  • Housed in archival polyester L-Velope

Finding aids

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Carter MSS i.G.44B (probably).

Existence and location of copies

Archived scan in Griffith Institute.

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