Facsimile painting from the 'Green Room' in the North Palace at Amarna

A long horizontal band of painted birds, several in flight, rises above a dense swamp of lotus and papyrus on a gold ground. Vertical gold panels divide the field, and a patterned blue-and-gold border runs along the base. The tempera handling is flat and decorative, with fine linear detail in the plants.

Look closer: A small bird with a fish or insect in its beak sits among the reeds near the center.

Artist

Nina de Garis Davies

Date

1926; original ca. 1347–1330 BCE

Medium

Tempera on paper

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

3811 × 978 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1930