The most lavishly decorated tomb in ancient Egypt was constructed for Queen Nefertari, wife of Rameses the Great. The Getty Conservation Institute has been instrumental in the effort to restore the tomb’s magnificent wall paintings, and in the fall of 1992, to mark the project’s completion, an exhibition was held at the Getty Museum. The exhibition included a model of the tomb and full-scale reproductions of the wall paintings. The publication describes the conservation work (including before and after photographs), outlines the life of Nefertari, and places the tomb in the context of Egyptian art history.

• Foreword, Mohamed Ibrahim Bakr
• Preface, John Walsh
• Introduction, Miguel Angel Corzo
• The Conservation of the Wall Paintings, John K. McDonald
• Some Royal Women of the Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Dynasties, Robert Steven Bianchi
• Nefertari as Chief Queen and Principal Wife, Robert Steven Bianchi
• On the Nature of Egyptian Painting, Robert Steven Bianchi
• An Assessment of the Wall Paintings, Robert Steven Bianchi
• Condition Surveys
• Checklist of the Exhibition
• Glossary
• Selected Bibliography

Robert Steven Bianchi is chief curator and curator of the Archaeology Collection at the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Geneva.

John McDonald is an Egyptologist, art historian, and former associate director of the Yale University Art Gallery.

Mohamed Ibrahim Bakr was Chairman of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

Miguel Angel Corzo is former director of the Getty Conservation Institute.