![]() “To have this pair of Fayum portraits reunited is exciting for the Museum and for our visitors,” says Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. After acquiring the two portraits, one of them remained at the ROM, while the other went to the National Gallery of Canada. Currelly, one of the ROM’s founders, obtained the two mummy portraits from Sotheby’s in 1912. The paintings will both be on display at the ROM starting May 18, 2019, in the Museum’s Eaton Gallery of Rome. (40.TORONTO, February 28, 2019- After more than 100 years of separation, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is reuniting two extraordinarily well-preserved Fayum mummy portraits. Material: Encaustic (wax and pigments) on wood.However, the practice continued well into Byzantine and Western cultures in the post-classical world, including the local tradition of Coptic iconography in Egypt. They are the few surviving examples of the panel painting tradition from the classical world. The portraits date to the Imperial Roman era, from the late 1st century BC or the early 1st century AD and their production, ended in the middle of the 3rd century. While painted cartonnage mummy cases date back to pharaonic times, the Faiyum mummy portraits were introduced at the time of the Roman occupation of Egypt. These Mummy portraits are most common in the Faiyum Basin and the Hadrianic Roman city Antinoopolis. They were attached to Upper-class mummies from Roman Egypt. Fayum Mummy Portraitsįayum mummy portraits are also are known as Faiyum, which is the collective term for a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards. Alexandria, it’s capital, possessed the largest port and was the second largest city of the Roman Empire. Roman Egypt was by far the wealthiest of the Eastern Roman provinces and by far the most prosperous Roman area outside Italia. The province came to serve as a major producer of grain for the empire and had a highly developed urban economy. The Romans annexed the Ptolemaic Kingdom to the Roman Empire. The Roman province of Egypt was established in 30 BC after the defeat of Mark Antony and Pharaoh Cleopatra. The Coptic period began about the 3rd century and lasted until around the significant decline of Christianity in Egypt with the arrival of Islam in the 7th century.Īlthough the term “Coptic period” is generally avoided by the academics due to its imprecise interpretation, because “Late Antiquity” or “Byzantine Egypt” are used to define chronological periods.Ĭoptic Christianity still has many followers in present-day Egypt. This era was defined by the religious shifts in Egyptian culture to Coptic Christianity from ancient Egyptian religion until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. The “Coptic period” is an informal designation for Late Roman Egypt (3rd−4th centuries) and Byzantine Egypt (4th−7th centuries). In terms of artistic tradition, the images derive more from Greco-Roman artistic traditions than Egyptian ones. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest viewed frontally. Almost all have now been detached from the mummies. Surviving examples show that they were mounted into the bands of cloth that were used to wrap the bodies. Due to the hot, dry Egyptian climate, the paintings are often very well preserved, often retaining their brilliant colors seemingly not faded by time. The panel portraits were made in either tempera paint or encaustic, as in this example.Įncaustic painting is a technique in which the pigment is dissolved in wax before it is applied to the surface.Ībout 900 mummy portraits are known at present. The portraits covered the faces of bodies that were mummified for burial. ![]() The term “Faiyum Portraits” is today generally regarded as a stylistic and not just a geographic description. Mummy portraits have been found across Egypt, but are most common in the Faiyum Basin. Regarding the artistic tradition, the images derive more from Greco-Roman artistic traditions than Egyptian ones. The “Coptic period” was defined by the religious shifts in Egyptian culture to Coptic Christianity from the ancient Egyptian religion and which dominated until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. While painted cartonnage mummy cases date back to pharaonic times, the Faiyum mummy portraits were an innovation dating to the Coptic period. Fayum pictures are the only significant body of art from that tradition to have survived. These Mummy portraits belong to the tradition of panel painting, which was a highly regarded art form in the Classical world. It is a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to Egyptian mummies from the Coptic period. These types of Mummy portraits are also called Fayum mummy portraits.
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