A foregone conclusion

This [depicting the statue as completed before it was begun being made] would also explain why the ritual as it is recorded in Rekhmire’s tomb begins with the purification of the completed statue. The artist was not concerned to present the events in chronological order. Rather, by beginning the written and visual records of the wpt-r with a completed image of Rekhmire, the very sequence itself declares the success of the ritual acts: that this image will be transformed into a manifestation of its referent is a foregone conclusion.—The "Image of God" in the Garden of Eden, page 104