This beautiful portrait is a rare examples of
secular, non-royal portraiture in the ancient
world, and is also one of a small collection of
Faiyum portraits – arguably the most important
example of cultural syncretism in antiquity (the
other candidate is the Gandharan cultural
tradition) – that has come down to us. Faiyum
portraiture was the fusion of Roman socio-
economics, Greek painting traditions and
Egyptian stylistic conventions. The Romans
combined these elements when they invaded
Egypt, and were so struck by the idea of
mummification that they had their dead
mummified, then applied a portrait of the
deceased – painted on thin wood – over the face.
The tradition also gave rise to the Coptic style,
which went on to define the iconography of early
Christendom, Byzantine artistic traditions, and,
eventually, the Renaissance.
The subject is a young man, seated with his body
turned toward the left and his head slightly
turned back toward the right in a pose which
places emphasis on his relatively long neck. His
curly hair is arranged in loose curls on top of his
head, but has been neatly styled around his ears
and neck. His bushy eye brows rise over his
hieroglyphically-rendered brown eyes and frame
the thin bridge of his nose. His mouth is
emphasized by its rosy-coloured lips, the upper
designed as a sensuous Cupid’s bow. The sparse
nature of the youth’s beard and moustache
suggests that he is in his late teens or early
twenties, as also indicated by his firm, fair skin.
The youth is depicted wearing a tunic, the
neckline of which falls relatively low on his upper
chest, and a mantle, draped over each shoulder
where it is decorated with the clavi, or stripes of
rank. The youthful character of the portrait
suggests that the subject died prematurely.
On the basis of the style of his coiffure and the
appearance of both his beard and moustache
one can suggest a date for this portrait in the
last quarter of the second century AD (about
175-200). That dating is based on the
observation that the aristocratic members of
Roman Egypt’s elite society, to which this young
man and his family must have belonged, chose
to have themselves depicted in the prevailing
fashions established by the emperor and his
court in contemporary Rome.
The portrait may have been originally been
placed on a wall in the home of the sitter or in
that of his parents in the manner in which we
still hang pictures of family and friends on the
walls of our own homes. When the youth died,
the portrait was removed and entrusted to the
funerary priests. These priests then trimmed this
thin, wooden portrait panel by cutting each of its
upper corners at a diagonal. This purposeful
trimming then enabled those priests to place the
portrait upon the youth’s mummy and secure it
in place with mummy bandages.
This is a beautifully conceived and executed
piece of ancient portraiture, as well as being a
historically important document of the birth of
Western art traditions.
References:
Euphrosyne Doxiadis, 'The Mysterious Fayum
Portraits. Faces from Ancient Egypt', (New York
1995)
