Artwork
Carpenter Making a Chair, Tomb of Rekhmire
Carpenter Making a Chair, Tomb of Rekhmire is an unspecified painting by Nina M. Davies. It dates from 1490 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The facsimile depicts a carpenter at work, shown operating a bow drill to shape a wooden chair.
The facsimile depicts a carpenter at work, shown operating a bow drill to shape a wooden chair. The scene reproduces a wall painting from the Theban tomb of Rekhmire (TT 100), a high official who served as governor of Thebes and overseer of royal works during the reigns of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II in the early 18th Dynasty. Such workshop scenes were a standard feature of Rekhmire's tomb decoration, where they functioned as visual records of the organized craft production overseen by the tomb owner, presenting him as the administrator of labor on behalf of the king.
The bow drill, the workpiece of chair timber, and the seated posture of the craftsman together communicate the technical skill and structured supervision of Egyptian woodworking, a craft closely associated with elite funerary and palatial furnishings.
History & Provenance
The painting Carpenter Making a Chair is a facsimile created by Nina de Garis Davies for the Tomb of Rekhmire (TT 100), dated to c. 1479 BCE. The work was produced as part of a broader program of facsimile painting in the tomb, commissioned during the 18th Dynasty. The original tomb scenes were documented and reproduced by Davies, whose copies are now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 31.6.29).
The facsimile depicts a carpenter at work, including tools such as a bow drill, reflecting the tomb’s artisan-themed scenes.
The work, a facsimile painting titled Carpenter Making a Chair from the Tomb of Rekhmire (TT 100), is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was created by Nina M. Davies and depicts a carpenter using a bow drill to construct a chair. The object is cataloged under the accession number 31.6.29.
The original scene dates to approximately 1479 BCE. The provided sources identify the current location as the Metropolitan Museum of Art but do not contain specific details regarding a chronological exhibition history or past loan records for this specific inventory item.
Context
The painting, dated to 1479 and classified as a tomb scene, was executed by Nina M. Davies and is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET 31.6.29). It portrays a carpenter shaping a chair with a bow drill, illustrating contemporary Egyptian craftsmanship. Scholarship treats the work as a precise facsimile that documents early 20th‑century Egyptological illustration techniques and highlights Davies’s role within the corpus of Theban tomb art.
Its reception emphasizes technical accuracy and its contribution to the study of ancient Egyptian material culture, positioning the piece at the intersection of archaeological visualization and art historical analysis.
Overview
This artwork, titled Carpenter Making a Chair, Tomb of Rekhmire, is a twentieth-century drawing by Egyptologist Nina M. Davies. It meticulously records a scene from an ancient Egyptian tomb painting, depicting a craftsman at work. The original painting, found in the New Kingdom tomb of Rekhmire, illustrates daily life activities.
Davies's rendering captures the details of this ancient depiction, preserving it for study and display. The drawing is now part of the collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Technique & Style
The figure of the carpenter exhibits characteristics typical of ancient Egyptian artistic conventions. His posture is rigid, with one leg bent and the other extended, a common representational approach that combines different viewpoints for clarity. Despite his labor, the man's facial expression conveys a sense of calm, almost a slight smile.
The background is rendered simply, emphasizing the figure and his task, consistent with the functional and descriptive style of tomb art.
Artist & collection
Artist
The Egyptologists Nina M. Davies (6 January 1881 – 21 April 1965) and Norman de Garis Davies (1865–5 November 1941) were a married couple of illustrators and copyists who worked in the early and mid-twentieth century…
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