Portrait on a wooden board

Portrait on a wooden board

The only large-scale artworks of this tradition that survive from Roman Egypt are the Coptic portraits Part of the panel painting tradition one of the most highly regarded art forms in the world the Fayum portraits were naturalistic portraits painted on wooden panels attached to the mummy of an elite Mummy portraits are found throughout Egypt most notably in the Fayum Basin particularly from Havra and the Roman city of Antinopolis during the time of Hadrian Fayum portraits describe stylistic characteristics rather than geographical descriptions A long period of time passed before more mummy portraits became available In 1887 a large number of mummy portraits were discovered in a cave in the desert A Viennese art dealer discovered several more portraits which he tried to sell for a profit He associated these portraits with the Ptolemy dynasty pharaohs and compared them to other works of art mostly portraits from coins which attracted attention in part because they were supported by eminent scholars such as Rudolf Vershaw. As a result mummy portraits became a major focus of interest in the late 19th century The unique resurrection art of the paintings made them highly sought after collectibles in the art world

Periodo antonino, ritratto funerario di donna / Fayum Portrait of a Boy

The Fayum mummy portraits are an innovation dating back to the Roman period of Egypt. The later Western tradition of Coptic Christian iconography in Egypt depicting mummy figures made from cardboard boxes dates back to the Pharaonic period These portraits date back to the Roman Empire from the late 1st century BC It is not clear when the production of these images ended They are among the largest group of paintings among the few survivors of the panel painting tradition of the Classical world from the mid-3rd century BC to the Byzantine Eastern Mediterranean and Western traditions They provide insight into the clothing hairstyles and ornaments of the people of that period The Fayum mummy portraits are now found in the Fayum tomb Due to the hot and dry climate of Egypt the paintings are well preserved still beautiful and colorful without fading with time

The majority were concentrated in Alexandria The first Greeks in the Fayum were military veterans and priests and high-ranking military officers Greeks lived alongside the three to five million native Egyptians who were settled in the Fayum from all over the country by the Ptolemy kings in reclaimed territories Native Egyptians many veterans of the Roman army and people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds settled there formed social relationships and intermarried The remainder were native Egyptians during the Roman period The Greek population of Fayum was largely composed of Egyptians who had been influenced by Greek or of mixed Egyptian-Greek descent Later in the Roman period the Nile Delta Upper Egypt Oxyrhynchus and Memphis The process of land reclamation is confirmed by personal names local cults and Fayum papyrus Up to 30 percent were Greeks during the Ptolemaic period