Identity area
Reference code
Carter MSS i.G.44E
Title
Date(s)
- 1951 (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
1 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' drawing of a scene with Ankhesenamun offering flowers to Tutankhamun and a frieze with girls picking flowers below, from the lid (no. 540) of box (no. 551), found in the Annex, tomb of Tutankhamun, KV 62, Valley of the Kings, Thebes.
Probably used for Davies tracing, see Carter MSS i.G.44A.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
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.
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
- Scale not recorded [1:1?]
- 45.6 x 38.5 cm
- Housed in archival polyester L-Velope
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
- See Carter MSS i.G.44A (tracing).
- Archived scan in Griffith Institute.