The scene illustrates the moment a small sarcophagus is opened in front of the Prince of Wales and his party at an excavation organised for him by Sa’id Pasha, the Viceroy. The Prince was allowed to keep anything found during the excavation which produced, as he mentioned in his journal, ‘a small mummy & a tablet’ (RA VIC/MAIN/EVIID/1862, 18 March). The sarcophagus and mummified remains are no longer in the Royal Collection but the ‘tablet’ is the funerary stela belonging to Nakhtmontu (RCIN 408372).

Jemima Blackburn was a Scottish painter, working mainly in watercolours. She illustrated books and drew animals and birds from life, including Queen Victoria’s dogs at Windsor. While travelling in Egypt, she passed the Prince of Wales’s flotilla on the Nile and temporarily joined his party. She painted two watercolours on 16 March, two the following day, and three on 18 March. This watercolour is one of the latter which the artist ‘made on the spot’ and then presented to the Prince of Wales at Christmas.