Art Of The Day Weekly

Summer with Tutankhamun

OXFORD – “Nostalgia is no longer what it used to be”, Simone Signoret had written. She was undoubtedly wrong! Historical references and new versions of mythical exhibitions are more than ever in fashion. We can see this at the Centre Pompidou with the return of the wonderful “Magicians of the earth” which met with such success 25 years ago. We will be further convinced of this in September with the retrospective the Marmottan museum is preparing around Monet’s seminal painting, Impression soleil levant. We can see it even more so at the Ashmolean Museum, where the unimaginable mysteries of the discovery of Tutankhamun are once again in the spotlight. The saga of the archaeologists who became famous between 1914 and 1922 in the Valley of Kings, directed by Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter – who arrived in Egypt at the age of 17 to copy frescoes – has us all breathless with its mysteries and curses. The exhibit borrowed from the rich collections of the Griffith Institute and brings together objects from the Amarna period, archives on the diggings never shown before, photos Harry Burton took exclusively for the Times of London, as well as objects that testify of the Tutankhamun fever of the 1920s (jewels, clothes, advertising, etc.).
• Discovering Tut at the Ashmolean Museum, from 24 July to 2 November 2014.

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