Citation: Stupko‑Lubczynska, Anastasiia. 2024. The Author Takes a Bow: A Self‑Portrait in Assistenza in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el‑Bahari. Arts 13: 142. hps:// doi.org/10.3390/arts13050142 Academic Editors: Kathlyn Cooney and Alisee Devillers Received: 29 February 2024 Revised: 8 August 2024 Accepted: 9 August 2024 Published: 20 September 2024 Copyright: © 2024 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Swiꜩerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Aribution (CC BY) license (hps:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). arts Article The Author Takes a Bow: A Self‑Portrait in Assistenza in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el‑Bahari Anastasiia Stupko‑Lubczynska Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw, Tyniecka 15/17, 02‑630 Warszawa, Poland; a.stupko‑lubcz@uw.edu.pl Abstract: In art‑historical terms, a self‑portrait in assistenza refers to an artist having inserted their own likeness into a larger work. In Renaissance‑era art, more than 90 examples have been identi‑ fied, famously including Boicelli’s Adoration of the Magi (c. 1478/1483). There, Boicelli glances out from the painting, making direct eye contact with the viewer, a feature that appears in other self‑portraits of the type. In ancient Egypt, it was not commonly accepted that an artist would lay claim to it, especially when the work’s scale imposed diversification of tasks to be performed or team‑ work organized on a workshop basis. This article will present evidence discovered in the Chapel of Hatshepsut in her temple at Deir el‑Bahari that can be interpreted as a self‑portrait in assistenza and indicates that Djehuty, Overseer of the Treasury under Hatshepsut, took the lead role there. If this identification is valid, the room’s decoration gains an additional layer of meaning and may be “read” in terms of Djehuty’s message, comparable to Boicelli gazing out from his Adoration of the Magi. This ancient Egyptian case will illustrate how that artist‑designer, in interweaving subtle indicators of his involvement in the work, expresses awareness both of his intellectual skills and of his pride in creation. Keywords: artist; authorship; creativity; artist’s rhetoric; artist’s self‑perception; artist–viewer inter‑ action; conceptual art; Deir el‑Bahari; Hatshepsut; Djehuty of Theban Tomb 11; god Djehuty/Thoth 1. Introduction In the Egyptological discourse, common knowledge has it that ancient Egyptian art is an anonymous art, even an art without artists. 1 Indeed, despite that era’s broad social need for artistic production and thus of its artist‑makers, the prevailing custom of not sign‑ ing works has resulted in many thousands of preserved artworks we cannot link to their makers (for an overview, see Oppenheim 2006, pp. 216–19; Laboury 2012, pp. 199–200; Allon and Navrátilová 2017; Laboury and Devillers 2023, pp. 163–65). A difficulty in the identification of an actual author derives, on the one hand, from collective dimensions of artistic production (notable case studies: Baines 1989; Bryan 2001; Pieke 2011)—the environment in which developing individual style is subordinated to overriding condi‑ tions of homogeneity. On the other hand, the picture might be obscured by the omnipres‑ ence of a given work’s patron, who, as Jan Assmann has emphasized (Assmann 1987; 1996, pp. 55–56 and ff.; summary in Assmann 1991, pp. 139–40), “‘self‑thematized’ him‑ self through the work of art” while the object maker “withdraws his own identity from his creation”. (The quotation follows Laboury 2012, p. 199). 2 Even though some ancient Egyptian makers can be identified (as will be discussed be‑ low), in the royal context—i.e., when a state commission was involved—instances in which specific names can be linked to their creations are infrequent. The fundamental reason for this seems to be the scale of work conducted in those mostly monumental endeavors, which logically imposed the diversification of tasks to be performed. In this article, I will present one rare example of a royal monument in which, while under the patronage of Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh, the designer of its decoration Arts 2024, 13, 142. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13050142 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts