Image: Fayum-02

Description: Portrait of a woman in encaustic on limewood: a large crack splits the panel from top to bottom through the proper right eye, and a shorter crack runs through the left eye. The paint surface is damaged in several places. Traces of the mummy wrappings appear at the upper corners. The background was painted in bluish grey with long brush-strokes. The figure appears very large in relation to the background and is shown in three-quarter view. She wears a claret-coloured tunic with a very dark crimson clavus edged with gold, visible on the proper right side. A mantle of mauvish tone is draped around the shoulders. The woman wears gold ball earrings (painted with white highlights) typical of the later first century AD. She wears around her neck a gold chain with pendant crescent with ball-shaped terminals: this too is painted with creamy-white highlights. It is not out of the question that she originally had an ornamental chain across the hair, separating the bun on the crown from the locks in front - a feature of other Neronian portraits. Of this, nothing survives but a greyish ground. The front hair is arranged around the brow in two banks of snail-shaped curls, expanded to four above the ears. Locks fall behind the ears to either side of the neck; the necklace has been painted over the lock on the proper right side. The eyes (especially the proper left eye) are large and rounded, with arched eyebrows. The nose is rather shorter than the norm; the lips are full and painted rose pink. The creamy flesh is tinted pink on the cheeks and chin, and a creamy-white highlight runs down the nose and above and below the lips.
Title: Fayum mummy portrait.
Credit: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=119833&partId=1&object=21468&page=1
Author: Scanned and edited by Eloquence.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No