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Function. Painted on
either thin, wooden panels or linen shrouds, these portraits were encased
within mummy wrappings and placed over the face of the deceased (Doxiadis
1995, 12). Thompson (1982, 8-11) writes that the portraits may have been
commissioned during one’s lifetime to hang in the home until death.
Preliminary sketches and color notes made on the reverse of several panel
portraits discovered in the Fayum also suggest the presence of the sitter
(Thompson 1982, 14). The panel was cut down to fit into the mummy wrappings,
explaining the odd shape of many panels. The shape of the Nelson-Atkins
portrait may have resulted from this cropping.
Technique. The Nelson-Atkins
portrait is painted in the encaustic technique, as are the earliest and
best mummy portraits (Thompson 1982, 6). Encaustic paint consists basically
of pigment (from animals, vegetables, and minerals) and beeswax. According
to Thompson (1982, 6), the paint was slightly heated and applied to a
primed panel with a camel-hair brush to render the background and broad
areas. A metal cestrum, similar to a modern palette knife, was
used to produce greater detail (for further information see Doxiadis 1997;
Corzo et al. 1997; and Alexopoulou-Agoranou et al. 1997).
Provenance. Encaustic
mummy portraits are known from several sites in Egypt (Doxiadis 1995,
passim), especially the Fayum (a large, fertile area about 60 kilometers
southwest of Cairo), Akhmim (a site in Upper Egypt, north of Thebes),
and Antinoopolis (in Middle Egypt, about 300 kilometers south of Cairo).
The findspot of the Nelson-Atkins portrait was probably Antinoopolis.
According to Thompson (1972, 58-63), two portraits that were apparently
excavated in Antinoopolis (now in the Musée de Dijon) are so similar
in technique (especially in the handling of the paint and modeling of
the face) that they are most likely by the same artist. The Nelson-Atkins’s
laterally stepped panel is common to Antinoopolis, but not exclusively
so (Thompson 1972, 34-5).
Chronology. Based on
her hairstyle, most scholars date the Nelson-Atkins portrait to the reign
of Hadrian (117-138 A.D.; Parlasca 1966, 126) or Antoninus Pius (139-161
A.D.), the latter date being more likely (Vermeule 105; Peck 17; Thompson
1972, 56-63).
Portraits and reality.
Is the Nelson-Atkins portrait realistic? Without the mummy this question
cannot be answered. Thompson (1972, 27) describes the early portraits
from Antinoopolis as direct, unaffected likenesses. Gayet claimed that
during his excavations at Antinoopolis he compared the mummies with their
portraits, finding that all the female portraits showed the same hairstyle
as worn by the deceased (Doxiadis 1995, 150-1). Some mummies, however,
clearly do not relate to their painted portraits. Male portraits have
been found attached to female mummies (Filer 121-6, N. B. 121-2).
Published: Handbook
1933, 15; Handbook
1941, 15 fig. 6; Handbook
1959, 44; Hilde Zaloscer, Porträts aus dem Wüstensand:
Die Mumienbildnisse aus der Oase Fayum (Vienna: Anton Schroll, 1961),
61; Cornelius C. Vermeule, “Greek and Roman Portraits in North American
Collections Open to the Public,” The Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 108 (1964), 105 n. 29; Klaus Parlasca, Mumienporträts
und verwandte Denkmäler (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1966), 126
no. 4 n. 18; 127 n. 21; 130; pl. 31 fig.1; William H. Peck, Mummy Portraits
from Roman Egypt (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1967), 17 no.
11; 20; Klaus Parlasca, Ritratti di mummie. Repertorio d’arte
dell’Egitto greco-romano, 2d ser. I (Palermo: 1969), 87 no. 225
pl. 56 fig. 1; David L. Thompson, The Classes and Hands of Painted
Funerary Portraits from Antinoopolis (diss. University of North Carolina,
1972), 58-63, 70-2, 89; Handbook
1973, 54; Jacques-Edouard Berger, L’oeil et l’éternité:
Portraits romains d’Egypte (Paudex: Editions de Fountainemore,
1977), 174; Handbook
1993, 115; Euphrosyne Doxiadis, The Mysterious Fayum Portraits:
Faces from Ancient Egypt (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), 92, 216.
Other cited sources:
Athina Alexopoulou-Agoranou et al., “Pigment Analysis,” in Morris
Bierbrier (ed.), Portraits and Masks: Burial Customs in Roman Egypt
(London: British Museum Press, 1997), 88-95; M. Corzo et al., “Scientific
Analysis of a Fayum Portrait,” in Portraits and Masks, 81-7;
Euphrosyne Doxiadis, “From Eikon to Icon,” in Portraits
and Masks, 78-80; Joyce Filer, “If the Face Fits...,” in
Portraits and Masks, 121-6; David L. Thompson, Mummy Portraits
in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1982).
Other useful sources:
Campbell Cowan Edgar, “On the Dating of the Fayum Portraits,”
Journal of Hellenic Studies 25 (1905), 225-33; Gunther Grimm,
Die römischen Mumienmasken aus Ägypten (Wiesbaden: Franz
Steiner, 1974); W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Hawara Portfolio: Paintings
of the Roman Age. British School of Archaeology in Egypt and Egyptian
Research Account 22 (London: School of Archaeology in Egypt, 1913);
Arthur Shore, Portrait Painting from Roman Egypt, rev. ed. (London:
Trustees of the British Museum, 1972).
(CM)
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