Visions of Ancient Egypt

Artists have looked to Egypt for centuries. For many observers, it is a phenomenon synonymous with the 1920s, when the rediscovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the story of a boy king buried with his riches sparked a ‘Tutmania’ that touched all aspects of popular culture and fashion. The story, however, stretches much further back into history. It runs from antiquity, when the Romans looted monuments to Italy, assimilated Egyptian gods into their pantheon, and made new ‘Egyptianising’ objects; through to the Cleopatra of Shakespeare’s stage and Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’; and even recent decades, where artists like David Hockney and Chris Ofili have continued to reinterpret Egypti