Arcadópolis
Portrait of the Boy Eutyches
Fayum mummy portraits, 100–150
What you see
Eutyches faces us head-on, shown from the shoulders up against a smooth gray-green ground. His head fills the upper part of the panel: brown hair cut in a fringe, one ear showing on the left, large dark eyes fixed on the viewer and a mouth on the edge of a smile. A white tunic covers his shoulders, with a purple stripe running down the left side.
The skin shifts from soft pinks to warmer ochres at the neck, and a dot of light in each pupil brings the gaze to life. On the tunic, quick white strokes can be told apart one by one. Notice the three lines of Greek letters in black across his chest and the bands of bare wood at the top and 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 a Young Woman in Red
Funerary Portrait of a Young Girl
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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