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Her features are very fine with high cheekbones, narrow nose, thick red lips, and prominent chin. The woman shown in the second ROM portrait is slightly more mature and matronly. Note the thick application of paint, lending it the appearance of an Impressionist painting. She is wearing a disc and pendant earring and an emerald necklace with gold links and is draped in a tunic and thick mantle both of a dark crimson colour.
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Her black hair is puffed out around her head with four separate curls falling over her forehead. The woman depicted in the ROM’s new portrait has the delicate facial features of a young woman with large almond-shaped brown eyes, thick eyebrows, aquiline nose, well-modelled red lips, and a narrow chin. With less reliance on preliminary underdrawings, the artists applied areas of colour that worked together to give each portrait the illusion of volume and depth as well as a sense of character and personality. Our portraits showcase the superb painterly skills of their artists. And now, a century later, thanks to the generosity of the Mona Campbell Endowment Fund and the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust, the two portraits are back together. Later that year, Currelly sold one of the mummy portraits to the National Gallery of Canada. One of these Hawara portraits and a second example, found by Petrie at another burial site in the Fayum, were acquired by Charles Currelly, the ROM’s first director, at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 1912. As with many of the advances achieved by the Greeks and lost by the Romans, painting of this quality remained lost until the birth of such masters as Rembrandt and Vermeer.In 1888, Sir Flinders Petrie discovered 81 mummy portraits at Hawara, an ancient Roman cemetery in the Fayum, Egypt. The Egyptian-Roman “death masks” are far more naturalistic than anything seen in the western hemisphere for at least the next 600 years. As a result, “Fayum” is now used to describe the style of painting more so than the actual location of the burials. Fayum was a sacred site if you had the money and the religious inclination, you were to be buried there.įrom this region came the greatest collection of this kind of portraiture. There is evidence to suggest that many of the mummies excavated in the area came from all over the state, suggesting that the Romans there had thoroughly embraced the native culture and practices. Though they are often referred to as “Fayum portraits” – taking their title from the location of a region in Egypt where Pharaoh Amenemhat III’s mortuary temple once stood – they came from various places across Egypt. 100–150 BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. The practice of burial in a sarcophagus and the creation of a likeness to place over the deceased’s head was taken from Egypt, while ancient painting techniques were drawn from the Romans – who, in turn, had inherited them from the Greeks. But around the 2nd century CE – after Rome had conquered Egypt – inhumation became more commonplace.Īt this time, delicately crafted portraits of the dead were placed atop their caskets. Afterwards (as was the case for most of Rome’s history) the body was cremated. The body itself was carried through the streets on a platform known as a bier. After the death of a citizen, a procession was often held in which mimes and dancers performed as one’s ancestors. The Romans, too, had their own rituals surrounding burial, though they were not nearly as extravagant – or permanent. Intricate gold masks inlaid with precious stones were placed over the heads of mummies to forever idolize the likenesses of the faces beneath them.
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The Great Pyramids of Giza, the lot of which are considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, are massive mausoleums erected for several of Egypt’s former pharaohs. That is to say, they left a mark on the former empire that can still be seen to this day – particularly in the incorporation of Greco-Roman style in Egyptian death rituals.Īs many are aware, the Egyptians had an elaborate preoccupation with death and the afterlife that tied closely into their religion, politics, and therefore daily life. Romans trickled into their new African territory and assimilated well within the existing culture.
![fayum mummy portraits fayum mummy portraits](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ce/0c/a1/ce0ca1bda61366ec9ea790273d8a6281.jpg)
These ancient Egyptian-Roman “death masks” are far more naturalistic than anything seen in the western hemisphere for at least the next 600 years.Īfter the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra by Octavian in 30 BCE, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. Though they are often referred to as “Fayum portraits” – taking their title from the location of a region in Egypt where Pharaoh Amenemhat III‘s mortuary temple once stood–- they came from various places across Egypt.