Monday, May 03, 2010, 8:39:06 AM

Aileen M. Mason
May 4, 2010

Egyptian Revival in Art Deco

The Roaring Twenties was a heady time of excess and greed. The world had just come out of a

massive war, the likes of which they thought never to see again. Those who survived the war met life

with a new exuberance. Fashion, architecture, jewelry, literature, music, dance, etc. all these burst forth

with a new style radically different from that of the Gilded Age. Influences from all over the world can

be seen in the architecture of the time – Mayan, Chinese, and especially Egyptian. Howard Carter’s

November 26, 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun’s intact tomb sparked a sudden flourish of Egyptomania
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worldwide, with headlines like “An Egyptian Treasure” and “New Cave of Aladdin.” In this paper, I

will attempt to examine how the Egyptian Revival style remanifested in the 1920s.

The first Egyptian Revival followed the translation of the hieroglyphic band on the Rosetta

Stone by Jean-François Champollion from 1822 to 1824. There were grave markers and prisons done

in an Egyptian-inspired architectural style. The style was deemed appropriate for severe institutions

such as courthouses and prisons, or funerary sculpture and structures seeing as Egyptian architecture

had for the Victorians connotations of eternity. This connotation can be seen in contemporary poetry

like Percy Bysshe Shelly’s poem Ozymandias. In this poem, Shelly expounds on the history-defying

nature of Egyptian monuments. These statues, gates, walls, temples, and tombs last for millennia,

which can indeed seem like eternity. What self-respecting Victorian wouldn’t want their tomb to lie

undisturbed for three thousand years?

Egyptian Revival architecture almost always had cavetto cornices and palmiform capitals atop

columns. A cavetto (Figure 1) is a curved cornice often found at the top of walls, gates, or pylons. A

palmiform capital (Figure 2) is a lotus blossom shaped capital, usually placed atop an Egyptian style

unfluted column. Use of obelisks and sphinxes is also prevalent in the style of architecture. A famous

modern obelisk is the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., a tall straight shaft of stone topped
by a small pyramid. The most famous sphinx is, without a doubt, the Great Sphinx that guards the

pyramids at Giza in Egypt. It is a mythological creature which consists of a lion’s body and a man’s

head, usually the head of the pharaoh that erected it. This contrasts with the Greek sphinx who has the

head and torso of a woman, body of a lion, and wings of a bird.

fig 1. Cavetto 2. Palmiform capital

Not only in architecure did the second Egyptian Revival show itself, but also in the decorative

arts. In 1927, Cartier’s workshop created a clock made in the image of the gate of Ptolemy III,

Euergetes (Figure 3) a gate with wall built around the Temple of Khonsu, a New Kingdom temple

within the greater temple complex at Karnak. Of the Ptolemaic additions, only the gate is now extant.

This clock was made to suit the Egyptian fad of the 1920s, of which Egyptian Revival architecture was

one example.
3. Gate of Ptolemy III at Temple of Khonsu

This clock was probably made in the Paris workshops of Cartier, to judge by a photograph (Figure 4) of
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it sitting on a shelf with an assortment of othe clocks. It was not commissioned or designed with a

particular owner in mind, not being purchased until two years later in 1929, by Florence Blumenthal,
wife of a New York banker. So, to determine the intent of the artist, one must examine the clientele of

Cartier, Ancient Egyptian art, and the Egyptomania that followed in the wake of Howard Carter’s

discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.

4. Paris workshop, 1927

First of all comes the description of this lovely clock (Figure 5.) Its shape is solid and strong,

monumental even, leaving one with the impression that it is larger than it actually is. The colors of the

precious and semiprecious stones are bright and bold, even more so when compared to the Victorian

style jewelry Cartier was making before the 1920s. The tiaras and stomachers had been made of

platinum and diamonds, in shapes that imitated Louis XVI lace, delicate curls, spirals and floral

patterns. There is nothing delicate about this clock.

5. Egyptian Striking Clock
 The layout is symmetrical and balanced, each part (clock face, base, sides, and top band)

working together in harmony. Though it is taller than it is wide, the strong dark blue of the horizontal

lapis lazuli bands at top and bottom give the clock an aura of sturdiness. Like the ancient architecture it

imitates, this clock looks as if it existed long before you, the viewer, were born and would endure

unchanged long after you are dead and buried. This, as well as the sumptuous materials lead to the

conclusion that this is far superior to most of the knicknaks and trinkets made and sold to appeal to the

Egyptian fad. Though the colors are bright, they are not gaudy. The clock has a refined elegance to it.

Many of the luxury items of the those heady days of the Roaring Twenties were boxed up and stored

away, or sold after the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929, but I would like to think that this clock was

prized by the Blumenthal family, remaining a part of their home’s decor for many years. Who knows if

it was, but the very fact that is was included in this exhibit suggests that it was sold back to Cartier at

some point.

This clock would have been a signifier of the wealth and prestige of the Blumenthals. Gold,
emerald, lapis lazuli: these are not cheap materials, by any stretch of the imagination. The silver gilt,

coral, carnelian, or enamel you might see on objects meant for a wider audience, but this clock was

made by Cartier. Cartier had always catered to the upper class; duchesses, wives or mistresses of the

captains of industry, movie stars, even the crowned heads of Europe.

This clock is emblematic of the Egyptomania that swept the world after Howard Carter’s

discovery of the pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb. This craze for all things ancient Egyptian can also be

seen in the scarabs also made by Cartier, the themed Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, and the Agatha

Christie mystery novel Death on the Nile, or her little-known drama Akhenaten. At the time, Agatha

Christie was married to the archaeologist Max Mallowan, and it shows in several novels. Also to be

seen is the influence of the Jazz Age, with dialogue like this, as quoted by Dr. Joann Fletcher,

“‘Darling, I know I’m frightfully indiscreet in the things I say... That’s why Akhenaten and I would

have never got on. I don’t believe he’s got any sense of humour. He’s so dreadfully religious too...’
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You can just see their bobbed haircuts and long cigarette-holders.” The culture of the time borrowed

from all these multicultural sources, viewing it through the lens of their own time, transforming it into

something their own.

The details of this clock are not completely true to the particulars of Ancient Egyptian art. For

example, the quasi-hieroglyphics that nearly cover the front are completely illegible. Instead of

recognizable characters like the vulture or reed leaf, there are horizontal lines, circles, and the

occasional squiggly line that actually is the hieroglyph for water and the sound of N. Cartouches, the

braided rope that encircles the name of important members of the Egyptian royal family, such as the

Pharaoh or Great Royal Wife, abound in the faux inscription. Likewise, the figures in the mother-of-

pearl section where all sorts of royal and godly regalia, seemingly at random. Thirdly, the skin color

given to some of the multicolored figures are strange for Egyptian art. Men typically would have red

skin and the women yellow, but two of the men have red skin, one man and woman have dark brown

skin usually only used for Nubians or other foreign people from Sub-Saharan Africa, the goddess Isis,

her identity indicated by the staircase atop her brow, spreads her protective enamel wings over the
pylon, but she has orange skin. That is the closest to the traditional skin color to be found on this clock.

Either the designer of this piece did not do his research, or this was intended as a loose interpretation of

Egyptian form. Ancient Egypt as seen through the lens of early Art Deco.

This clock can be seen as a successful combination of myriad influences: Art Deco, Ancient

Egypt, Hellenistic patronage, Egyptomania, and the conspicuous consumption of the upper class. The

result is a clock that is both timeless and completely of its time.

Not unlike the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, the wealthy of the San Francisco Bay Area wanted to

go out in style. Their mausoleums might not glitter with golden grave goods, but they were carved out

of fine marble and granite. Unlike Egyptian architecture, these were not painted in bright polychrome

but rather adhered to the neoclassical monochromatic aesthetic.

To further my understanding and observation of Egyptian Revival style, I visited three

cemeteries in Colma, California; Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Cypress Lawn, and Hills of Eternity

Memorial Park. Therein, I found several examples of Egyptian Revival funerary architecture. In

Cypress Lawn were some of the most elaborate examples of Egyptian Revival, though virtually all

shared similar attributes: cavetto (Egyptian) cornices, roll or rope-like moldings, torus molding directly

underneath the cavetto, battered walls, a smooth ashlar finish, lotus flowers as a recurring motif,

sphinxes, and a combination of sun disk, protective wings and double uraeus located centrally in the

front cavetto. An uraeus is a protective cobra often placed on the brow of Pharaoh’s crown.

Supposedly, it would spit fire at any enemy of the pharaoh.

The John A. Buck Mausoleum’s (Figure 6) approach is flanked by two sphinxes that face each

other, as they would in the approach to an Egyptian temple. However, the two sphinxes (Figure 7) have

the female breasts of a Greek sphinx, a mistake shared by the sphinxes at the Whittell Family

Mausoleum because Egyptian sphinxes do not have breasts, unlike the Greek sphinx. Egyptian

sphinxes would typically have the male face of a pharaoh wearing the striped nemes headcloth. The

faces of the sphinxes in front of the John A. Buck Mausoleum are somewhat androgynous and in

profile (Figure 8) you can see the touches of Art Deco style. The walls of the mausoleum itself are
somewhat battered (Figure 6), that is somewhat wider at the bottom than at the top. The cavetto

cornice extends around all four sides of the mausoleum decorated by alternating leaf and lotus buds

interrupted only by the sun disk/double uraeus/protective wings (Figure 9) directly over the front door.

The door is flanked by two columns with a geometric triangular design at the bottom and palmiform

capitals (Figure 10). The door and back window are covered by bronze grilles with lotus patterns

worked into the design.

6. John A. Buck Mausoleum Cypress Lawn

7. John A. Buck Mausoleum 8. John A. Buck Mausoleum

Sphinx (frontal view) Sphinx (side view)
Cypress Lawn Cypress Lawn

9. John A. Buck Mausoleum

Cavetto, rope turos molding, sun disk, double uraeus, wings
Cypress Lawn
 10. John A. Buck Mausoleum
Palmiform capital
Cypress Lawn

The Whittell Family Mausoleum shares many characteristics with the John A. Buck

Mausoleum. It also has slightly battered walls (Figure 11), but the walls lack the smooth ashlar finish

of the Buck Family Mausoleum. The walls are flat massive slabs of stone. The cornice (Figure 12)

lacks the alternating leaf and flower decoration of the Buck Family Mausoleum, just a smooth surface

from the rope moulding to the flat roof. Directly above the door is once again the sun disk/double

uraeus/protective wings combination. The sphinxes (Figure 13) that stand guard on either side of the

short staircase leading to the double door do not face each other. These two sphinxes display an even

greater influence of Art Deco design. The nemes headcloth the two sphinxes wear is long enough to

cover their upper part of their front legs, and with that length it looks more like the long hair of a

woman. These two sphinxes also have the Greek breast, rather than the Egyptian lion body. There is a

floral pattern on their chest above the breasts. The paws curl around the edge of the pedestal, looking

more like human fingers than a lion’s dread paws. The face and long nemes headcloth are repeated on

the lower portion of the double doors (Figure 14) above which is a branching pattern of lotus flowers

done in bronze over a panel of glass.

11. Whittell Mausoleum
Cypress Lawn
 12. Whittell Mausoleum
Cavetto, rope turos molding, sun disk, double uraeus, wings
Cypress Lawn

13. Whittell Mausoleum 14. Whittell Mausoleum

Art deco Sphinx Decorative metal door,
Cypress Lawn lotus flowers and sphinx heads
Cypress Lawn

The Naphtaly Family Monument (Figure 15) resembles the gate of Ptolemy III Euergetes and

the Cartier clock based on that gate. It is tall and thin, made of stone blocks. The cavetto is smooth

except for the familiar sun disk/double uraeus/protective wings, and the torus molding has a rope-like

texture. Two bands of Art Deco floral designs run down either side. The metal gate is mostly

unremarkable except for little lily buds at the top of the bars.
15. Naphtaly Monument
Hills of Eternity
 Another manifestation of Egyptian Revival style is the obelisk. Simple, clean and relatively

cheap to erect, obelisks had wide popularity. The cost of an elaborately carved headstone would

generally exceed that of a simple obelisk. While there were many in the cemeteries that I visited, allow

me to examine two in particular. One was an obelisk of modest size that was dedicated to the officers

and men/women of the charitable organization, the Salvation Army (Figure 16.) The other one, was a

commemoration of the mass burial site of the remains from the burial grounds of the Laurel Hill

Cemetery when they were removed from San Francisco to the Cypress Lawn Cemetery (Figure 17.)

Unlike Egyptian obelisks, the Laurel Hill dedicatory obelisk is much wider at the bottom than it is at

the top. Also, it is built of many smaller blocks of stone, whereas ancient Egyptian and the Salvation

Army obelisk are built of a single block of stone. On the other hand, the Laurel Hill dedicatory obelisk

is more to the scale of an ancient Egyptian obelisk: massive and monumental. The Laurel Hill

dedicatory obelisk lacks a frontal inscription, while the Salvation Army one has their symbol and an

inscription, “Comrades promoted to glory.”

16. Salvation Army Obelisk 17. Laurel Hill marker and centennial dedication
Cypress Lawn Cypress Lawn
 It was surprising to find Egyptian Revival funerary monuments at Hills of Eternity, which is a

Jewish cemetery. I had thought that perhaps those of Jewish extraction would want to avoid the

architectural style of their former slave masters. But lo and behold, several examples were to be found

within this cemetery. Again, these mausolea share many features with the mausolea at Cypress Lawn.

For instance, battered walls, cornices, sun disk/double uraeus/protective wing pattern, rope-like torus

molding, ashlar finish, columns with palmiform capitals, and elaborate grille work. The

Foorman/Lengfeld Mausoleum (Figure 18) has a gate that is taller than its side walls. In this way, it

most closely imitates the temple walls that the rest of the mausolea imitate instead of authentic

Egyptian tomb architecture. The Steinman Mausoleum (Figure 19) has the most European roof as it is

not a flat roof commonly found in Egyptian and Egyptian Revival architecture. However, it is the only

mausoleum that gets the hoods of the cobras correct. When a cobra is poised to strike its neck widens

to a wide hood meant to alert or alarm. It also has markings – a vertical line trisected by two horizontal

lines. Lacking in the Grinbaum Mausoleum (Figure 20) is the sun disk/double uraeus/protective wings
combination in the cavetto cornice. Instead, the sun disk/double uraeus/protective wings combination

is located directly above the nameplate. The mausoleum takes its shape from a large sarcophagus, low

and boxlike. The Funkenstein Mausoleum (Figure 21) seems to be aiming for simplicity of form, with

battered walls, a smooth torus molding which is actually more authentically Ancient Egyptian than the

rope torus molding, and a smooth, undecorated cavetto. Unlike most of the others, this mausoleum has

lotus bud capitals on the columns, not palmiform. The roof does not conform to the Egyptian standard

flat roof, most likely to appeal more to modern eyes.

18. Foorman/Lengfeld Mausoleum 19. Steinman Mausoleum
Hills of Eternity Hills of Eternity

20. Grinbaum Mausoleum 21. Funkenstein Mausoleum

Hills of Eternity Hills of Eternity

Aside from a few obelisks, the only Egyptian Revival monument to be found at Holy Cross

Cemetery was a pyramid-shape marker for Hugh Whittell, a man who profited greatly from the gold

fields of California (Figure 22.) Without a doubt, this is the simplest in construction – naught but a

solid stone inscribed on two sides with a boastful poem and on the front with the man’s name. It is

simple, yet classic, invoking the memory of the acclaimed pyramids of the Old Kingdom period of
Ancient Egypt. Perhaps this man whose fortune came from the gold fields of 1849 saw a connection

between himself and the pharohs of old with their glittering golden tomb treasures.
22. Hugh Whittle
Holy Cross

All of these illustrations of Egyptian Revival architecture, jewelry, poetry speak of the modern

Western fascination with the exotic, nay even fantastical wonders of Ancient Egypt. Each phase of

these revivals was sparked by some great archaeological discovery, whether it be Rosetta Stone or the

tomb of Tutankhamun. The first phase of the Egyptian Revival was touched by the contemporary

Neoclassical movement, and in the same way also the second Egyptian Revival was strongly

influenced by the Art Deco movement. Although the grave markers do not have a chance to shine with

bright, bold colors, like the Cartier Egyptian striking clock, but they do betray the slight abstraction of

natural form. This can particularly be seen in the sphinxes that stand guard in front of the John A. Buck

and Whittell mausolea, moreso with the Whittell rather than the Buck sphinxes. Although the clock is a

piece of jeweled clockwork, it has much to say about Egyptian Revival architecture, being architectural

in form. It imitates the gate of Ptolemy III, and perhaps the Naphtaly monument imitates the same.

The two are so alike in shape that it seems a strong possibility.

The second Egyptian Revival was shorter lived than the first, ended sharply by the Great

Depression and the more restrained styles favored during harsh economic times. Despite its brevity,

the movement left many artifacts in the form of literature, architecture, the fine and decorative arts.

Bold color and exotic shapes suited the tastes of the time. Perhaps a parallel can be drawn between the

decadent 1920s and the extravagant preparations wealthy Egyptians made for the afterlife. Both the
wealthy of the 1920s and Ancient Egypt wanted the party to last forever.

1. Nicholas Reeves, Into the Mummy’s Tomb, The Real-Life Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Treasures, (New York, NY.:
Scholastic Publications Ltd, 1993), 32.
2. Martin Chapman, Cartier and America, (San Francisco, CA.: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and DelMonico
Books, 2009), 149.
3. Joann Fletcher, The Search for Nefertiti, (New York, NY.: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004), 63.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chapman, Martin. Cartier and America. San Francisco, CA.: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and
DelMonico Books, 2009.

Fletcher, Joann. The Search for Nefertiti. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004.

Howe, Jeffrey. “Egryptian Revival.” A Digital Archive of American Architecture. 1998,

<http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/egyptrev.html> (April 29, 2010).

LaChiusa, Chuck. “Egyptian Revival Architecture.“ 2006,

<http://www.buffaloah.com/a/archsty/egypt/rev.html> (April 27, 2010).

Reeves, Nicholas. Into the Mummy’s Tomb, The Real-Life Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Treasures. New
York, NY.: Scholastic Publications Ltd, 1993.