- Gallery Text
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The irregular shaping of the wooden board here helps us imagine the original placement of this portrait over the mummy’s face, affixed with complicated wrappings. The portrait is painted using the encaustic technique, in which pigment is mixed with beeswax, allowing the artist to achieve complex gradations of light and shade and sometimes a luminescence that has been compared to the sheen of oil painting. The man’s hair and beard are trimmed short in the fashion of the mid-third century.
- Identification and Creation
-
- Object Number
- 1923.59
- Title
- Portrait of a man
- Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- Mid-3rd century CE
- Places
- Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Africa, Fayum (Egypt)
- Period
- Roman Imperial period, Late
- Culture
- Egyptian
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/292324
- Physical Descriptions
-
- Medium
- Encaustic on imported European lime wood (Tilia europaea).
- Technique
- Painted
- Dimensions
- 46 × 20.2 × 2 cm (18 1/8 × 7 15/16 × 13/16 in.)
- Provenance
- Denman Waldo Ross, Cambridge, MA, (by 1923), gift; to Fogg Art Museum, 1923.
- Acquisition and Rights
-
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Dr. Denman W. Ross
- Accession Year
- 1923
- Object Number
- 1923.59
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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Four Fayum Portraits in the Fogg Art Museum, Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum (1924), II.1
Euphrosyne Doxiadis, The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Middle Egypt, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1995)
- Exhibition History
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Roman Gallery Installation (long-term), Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/16/1999 - 01/20/2008
Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/22/2007 - 01/20/2008
Re-View: S422 Ancient & Byzantine Art & Numismatics, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 04/12/2008 - 06/18/2011
Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
32Q: 3740 Egyptian, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 06/01/2022
- Subjects and Contexts
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Google Art Project
Collection Highlights
- Related Works
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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu