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Papyri, ostraka, paintings, steles and low reliefs in stone, wooden
furniture, and various earthenware, terracotta, and leather items are
brought together here in an illustration of the inspired creativity of
Egypt's draftsmen.


Curiously, drawing as it is to be seen in Egyptian art of the
pharaonic era has never been given an exhibition all to itself. This
is probably due to the problem Egyptologists and art historians have
in according the status of artists to these creators of over three
thousand years ago: while universally admired, these works can rarely
be attributed to a known hand.

With two hundred examples given a fresh perspective that reveals a
largely unsuspected reality, The Art of Outline: Drawing in Ancient
Egypt calls for a challenge to this approach, not to say the mindset
it reflects.

The exhibition opens with a presentation of the "outline scribes", as
painter-draftsmen are termed in the Egyptian texts. It continues with
works showing the characteristics, rules and variations of Egyptian
drawing that gave rise to unique works of art. The third and final
section presents the Egyptian world in drawings—or, more exactly, the
world and imaginative vision of the draftsmen: the gods, the
afterlife, magic, the pharaohs, the Egyptian people, foreigners, the
landscape, and animals. There is special emphasis, too, on the
satirical and the erotic.

The exhibition runs from April 19 to July 22, 2013, at the Richelieu
wing, lower ground floor of the Louvre Museum.