#fayum portrait

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Mummy Portrait of a Young Roman Girl, ca.AD 25-37 Roman Egypt, late Tiberian The Cleveland Museum of Art

[oposszum]

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (2/24/21) Roman Egypt (1st-3rd c. CE) Portrait of a Young Woman in Red (c. 90–120 CE) Encaustic on limewood w/ gold leaf, 38.1 x 18.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Rogers Fund)

The truly multicultural population in the cities of Roman Egypt provided a fertile ground for phenomena such as the painted panel portraits on mummies. In their artistic style and technique, the portraits on wood panels followed the Greek painting tradition of depicting the subject in three-quarter view, with a single light source casting realistic shadows and highlights on the face.  The background of this portrait here was originally gilded, emphasizing the divine status of the deceased young woman. She looks at the viewer with large serious eyes, accentuated by long lashes. A mass of loose curls covers her head, and some strands fall along the back of her neck on the left side. Framed by the black hair, deeply shadowed neck, and dark red tunic, her brightly lit face stands out in appealing youthfulness, an impression that is heightened by the gold wreath and sparkling jewelry.  (from the MMA catalog)

[przdwiosnie]

Fayum portrait, Unknown Artist

101-150 AD

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Mummy portrait.

Date: A.D. 100-120

Place of origin: Egypt

Medium: Wood, gesso, linen, tempera.

[brooklynmuseum]

Over the last few weeks, pre-program conservation interns Natasha Kung and Meredith Menache have been making custom paint swatches according to historic procedures. Although the tools they use are up to modern standards of practice – their gloves, masks, and clean glass beakers, for instance – the paint materials themselves and the methodology used are similar to those of artists making Romano-Egyptian funerary portraits (fayum portraits) about 2000 years ago. Dry pigments are mixed with water for form a paste then blended with a binding medium. Natasha and Meredith apply each type of paint mixed to a board that has also been prepared using historic materials and practices.

Conservators are particularly interested in paint made with indigo for this project. Since indigo was often used in a mixture with other pigments (adding orpiment makes green; adding madder makes purple), each board of paint outs that Natasha and Meredith create includes indigo mixed in different proportions with a different historic pigment. So far they have worked on mixtures with vine black and with gypsum. The binding media for the paint is also varied to include the range of options found on the Brooklyn Museum’s fayum portraits: each board will show the pigment mixtures applied using three different types of animal-based glue and two different types of wax.

The goal of this highly methodical process is to learn more about one of the analytical imaging techniques recently adopted at the Brooklyn Museum, used in the characterization of indigo. Studying known mixtures of indigo in a variety of binding media on these boards will help conservators know what information is most reliable when studying the fayum portraits using the same imaging techniques. In the next few months, conservators and interns will complete these paint outs and conduct the imaging. Stay tuned for the progress of this project!

Posted by Jessica Ford

[thehereticpharaoh]

“ The [Fayum] paintings are the products of a multicultural society, one in which Romans mixed with native Egyptians and with Greeks descended from the Macedonian armies of Alexander the Great to create a polyglot community.  The vast majority come from two sites south of the oasis, er-Rubayat (the necropolis of ancient Philadelphia) and Hawara (associated in Roman times with Arsinoë); they combine the religious imagery of Rome and Egypt, and production of them seems to have ceased shortly before the final Christianisation of the Roman Empire. Each painting shows the head and shoulders of a man, woman or child and is painted on a sliver of wood measuring around 12 inches by 6 [30 by 15cm]. The portraits are, therefore, very nearly life-sized.”

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Funerary Portrait.

Place of origin: Egypt, probably Faiyum

Date: A.D. Late 3rd - 4th century

Medium: Tempera on wood