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Material : Encaustic Painting on Wood
Width : 21 Height : 42
Found in : Fayum ()
Period : ROMAN PERIOD
Found in Fayum , this portrait of a young woman dates back to the Roman Period (the 2nd century AD) . A great corpus of portraits painted on wood known as the "Fayum portraits" and plaster masks was made during the Roman imperial era . The Roman taste had a particular interest in making portraits that stand for iconographic realism . Such a tendency became the most successful expression of the reciprocal penetration of Egyptian and Roman cultures that were far more integrated in death than in life . While plaster masks were placed on the mummy over the area of the face , portraits were either placed among the bandages wrapping the deceased's mummy or on the linen shrouds .
This example of the Fayum portraits is an encaustic painting made on wood . It denotes a high taste of decoration and a skillfully-organized color arrangement and a wide use of reflected lights . With delicate tones , the face portrayed shows in detail the most expressive and saddest facial features of a woman with a slightly-dark skin . She wears a magnificently elegant dress with a widely-open collar . This broad collar makes the fine golden choker on her neck more visible . The large black eyes and the thick eyebrows add to the sadness expressed to the viewer . A pair of earrings ornamented with pearls adds to the simplicity and beauty of the lady's face . Worth admiring is the woman's hair which is simply fastened with a pin . The hairstyle appears typically faithful to that one prevailing at that period .
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