PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN IN BRITISH MUSEUM
Your purchase will also include a FREE Egyptian Style Oil lamp, created by Potted History.
potted-history.co.uk/products/egyptian-frog-oil-lamp
The Fayum mummy portrait tradition fused Egyptian mummification practices with the realism of Greco-Roman portraiture, to preserve their subjects for eternity. A costly, time consuming process, only the elite in society were able to afford to have their relatives preserved in this way. There's definitely a formulaic element to these paintings- which were originally intended as an outer face covering on mummy cases. But an individual's status was indicated by their dress and jewellery.
This young woman wears a myrtle wreath in her elaborately, plaited, curled and styled hair. The Romans dedicated myrtle to their goddess of love, Venus, who was said to have been clasping a sprig of it when she rose from the sea on her miraculous birth. This suggests that the subject of this portrait was considered beautiful in life. She wears a white tunic and mantle draped round her neck. She has gold hoop earrings threaded with pearls and two gold necklaces that are rather difficult to interpret due to the poor condition of the original work. One is a necklet with long flat triangular pendant components with beads suspended at the lower point of each part. The longer piece appears to be composed of sections of chain with gold spacers between each section to form a flat, broad necklace. Her heavy eyebrows are brushed downwards, presumably in the fashion of the day. She has a dreamy, distracted expression on her face.
The original Roman -Egyptian mummy portrait is thought to have originated in Saqqara Memphis in Egypt, dated AD 100 -200. It can now be found in The British Museum. It was painted on an arched limewood panel using encaustic paint, coloured with lead white, ochres and arsenic colours. The jewellery was added using gold leaf. But for everyone's health and safety, this version has been created using modern Artist's Acrylics - which are non- toxic.
In encaustic painting the molten coloured waxes are applied with brushes and various fine spatula tools, using cross latching to build up a sense of form and shape. Modern Artists Acrylic is an excellent, non toxic substitute for the original paints used for such works. Many of the pigments still used today by professional artists are exactly the same earth colours used in history, just sourced and ground commercially, rather than by the individual painter in a pestle and mortar. Acrylic polymers act as the binding material for the colours.
This replica painting was painted on modern wooden ply gesso board, which provides a fine, smooth painting surface and a very durable support. Gesso board has been the favoured material for paintings for millennia, as it is such a good surface to work on, and the fine white surface allows the colours to remain bright and clear. It is extremely durable, as demonstrated by the number of paintings created on such boards still hanging in galleries all round the world.
SIZE
Painted gesso board 36.4 x 23.3 cm
It is ready to hang and framed in a bespoke solid wooden frame, with a dark “distressed” finish, to resemble bronze to emulate a simple classic Roman style frame. There is no glass required, as it has been finished with two layers of UVA protective matt varnish, to protect against light and mechanical damage. The outer dimensions of the framed work is 44.7 x 31.7cm wide by 2.8cm deep.
