PORTRAIT OF WOMAN FROM HAWARA, 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. These works have the capacity to make us see a person from almost 2,000 years ago as a real living subject, rather than a flat anonymous figure overlooked by the history books.
This powerful looking woman has an indomitable expression, with slightly raised sardonic eyebrows. She wears a deep red tunic, with a very dark crimson “clavus” (a vertical band running down the front and back of a garment) edged with fold on her right side. She has gold ball earrings typical of the third quarter of the first century AD. Round her neck is a delicate gold chain with a pendant crescent with spherical terminals.
The original Roman -Egyptian mummy portrait originated in Hawara in Egypt, and is dated AD 55 - 70. 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.
