Artwork
Women at a Banquet
Women at a Banquet is an unspecified painting by Nina M. Davies. It dates from 1931 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Created circa 1931 by Egyptologist and illustrator Nina M.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The painting depicts a single woman seated at a banquet table, rendered in a composition that emphasizes her solitary status amid a group setting.
The painting depicts a single woman seated at a banquet table, rendered in a composition that emphasizes her solitary status amid a group setting. The banquet scene functions as a symbolic representation of female presence within communal ritual, drawing on ancient Egyptian funerary banquet imagery to suggest themes of nourishment, social continuity, and the eternal role of women as participants in both earthly and afterlife ceremonies. The work is attributed to Nina M. Davies and is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Technique & Style
The painting technique employs tempera pigments applied to a wooden panel support, creating a flat, outlined composition characteristic of Egyptian funerary art. Figures are rendered with frontal, hieratic postures and minimal anatomical detail, emphasizing symbolic presence over naturalism. The banquet scene depicts women in profile and partial frontal view, arranged in a single register with stylized headdresses and jewelry, rendered in muted ochre and brown tones against a flat decorative background.
No evidence of brushwork variation or chiaroscuro modeling appears; instead, contours are defined by confident black outlines filled with flat color fields.
Overview
Created circa 1931 by Egyptologist and illustrator Nina M. Davies, Women at a Banquet records a domestic scene rendered in the flat, decorative manner typical of early twentieth‑century Egyptian tomb paintings. The work presents four women arranged around a simple interior, their gestures and attire echoing the visual language of ancient funerary art that the artist and her husband, Norman de Garis Davies, meticulously copied.
History & Provenance
Nina M. Davies produced the painting while collaborating with her husband on extensive field recordings of Egyptian temple and tomb decoration during the early to mid‑1900s. The piece reflects their joint effort to preserve visual details of ancient sites for scholarly study. Its exact ownership trail after creation remains limited to private collections, with occasional exhibition in institutions focusing on Egyptological art documentation.
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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