Arcadópolis
Funerary Portrait of a Young Girl
Fayum mummy portraits, c. 25–37
What you see
The girl faces us, her head set high on a panel with a rounded top. A wreath of golden sprigs holds her black curls, and two long corkscrew locks fall behind her ears to her neck. Her large dark eyes look straight ahead. She wears a gold collar, a pale tunic and, on the right, a lilac mantle over her shoulder.
The blue-gray ground makes the gold stand out: on the wreath, the round earrings, the collar of short bars, a stripe on the left, and the lips. The mantle is scattered with gold dots and small crosses like stars. The lower half of the panel has faded to browns, with bare wood showing at the bottom.
About Fayum mummy portraits
The Fayum portraits are some 900 portraits painted on wooden panels in Roman Egypt between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD by artists whose names we do not know. They were placed over the face of the mummy, held in place by the linen wrappings, and painted in encaustic (beeswax mixed with pigments) or tempera with striking realism. They are one of the largest groups of panel paintings to survive from classical antiquity, and their frontal gaze foreshadows icon painting.
More by Fayum mummy portraits
Portrait of the Boy Eutyches
Portrait of a Young Woman in Red
Portrait of a Thin-Faced, Bearded Man
Portrait of a Man with a Mole on His Nose
Portrait of a Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath
Portrait of a Thin-Faced Man
Funerary Portrait of a Woman
Funerary Panel of a Man
Elderly Man Flanked by Egyptian Gods
Mummy with an Inserted Panel Portrait of a Youth
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