Arcadópolis
Portrait of a Man with a Mole on His Nose
Fayum mummy portraits, 130–150
What you see
Facing us, his head set high on the panel, the man fixes the viewer with huge dark eyes. His curly black hair surrounds his head like a cloud, and a short beard and moustache outline the mouth. The small mole of the title sits on his nose. A white tunic falls in folds over his shoulders.
The blue-gray ground lightens around the hair, like a faint halo, and sets off the warm brown skin. The whites of the tunic are laid in with broad, quick strokes. At the bottom, an orange strip of bare wood closes the portrait. Notice the thick eyebrows and the narrow shadow that runs down one side of the nose.
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
Funerary Portrait of a Young Girl
Portrait of a Thin-Faced, Bearded Man
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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