The Stolen Queen
Once again spotlighting New York’s world-famous architecture and strong female protagonists in a poignant story, Fiona Davis has crafted a compelling tale set in 1930s Egypt and the Metropolitan Museum in the late Seventies. It’s all systems go at the Met in 1978 as two simultaneous exhibitions are being staged: the touring King Tutankhamun exhibition, and the Costume Institute display of the early 20th-century choreographer Diaghilev’s flamboyant and vibrant costumes, overseen by Diana Vreeland.
Within this whirlwind of preparation, sixty-year-old Charlotte Cross and nineteen-year-old Annie Jenkins cross unlikely paths, eventually striking up a partnership of sorts through common interests in ancient history. Charlotte, an Egyptologist, is curator of the Department of Egyptian Art. Annie is fortuitously hired as assistant to Vreeland and suggests the Costume Department borrow a stunning broad collar (necklace) from the Egyptian Art collection, to accent one of Diaghilev’s costumes. Charlotte recognised the collar immediately, when the Met signed it in, as one lost long ago in Egypt when she was a young woman, and is highly suspicious of its provenance, but is stymied by the director because the owner wishes to remain anonymous. The two women pass in the night as they prepare for the exhibitions and meet again the evening of the Met Gala, when things go wildly wrong and Charlotte can no longer ignore her tragic history.
Davis knows New York and its architecture well and expertly takes readers inside the famous museum with its thousands of artifacts and inevitable internal politics. The Egyptian settings exude a powerful sense of antiquity, and arguments for and against ownership of artifacts outside their country of origin reflect old and new thinking. Threading its way through the novel is Charlotte’s research into Hathorkare, Davis’s fictional Hatshepsut, an important and often overlooked Egyptian queen. The author’s notes are a welcome addition.
