A: The Egyptian Hall in London (1812-destroyed in 1905); B: 1862 lithograph of the Aegyptischer Hof (English: Egyptian court), from the Neues Museum, Berlin (early of mid-19th century); C: Interior of the Temple maçonnique des Amis philanthropes in Brussels, Belgium (1877-1879); D: Egyptian Theatre, Colorado, U.S. (1928) | |
Years active | Late 18th-present |
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Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat of the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Napoleon took a scientific expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the expedition's work, the Description de l'Égypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. The size and monumentality of the façades discovered during his adventure cemented the hold of Egyptian aesthetics on the Parisian elite. However, works of art and architecture (such as funerary monuments) in the Egyptian style had been made or built occasionally on the European continent since the time of the Renaissance.