|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Mummy mask of a woman with a jeweled garland, ca. A.D. 60–70. Painted plaster and cartonnage. Rogers Fund, 1919 (19.2.6)
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Portrait of a boy inscribed in Greek with his name "Eutyches", ca. A.D. 100–50. Encaustic on limewood. Gift of Edward S. Harkness, 1918 (18.9.2)
|
|
|
Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt
February 15, 2000–May 7, 2000
Special Exhibition Galleries, 2nd floor
Free with Museum admission
During the first to third century A.D. in Egypt, painted panel portraits—also known as Fayum portraits—were sometimes placed over the heads of mummies. With their direct full gaze and strong presence, these portraits, at once Greco-Roman in their painting style and intrinsically Egyptian in their purpose, bring the inhabitants of ancient Egypt before us with compelling immediacy. Based on a similar exhibition at the British Museum in 1997, Ancient Faces presents approximately 70 of the finest Fayum portraits, drawn from museums throughout Europe and the United States. Accompanied by examples of beautiful contemporary mummy coverings and masks, jewelry, funerary stelae, and related works, the exhibition places the portraits into the complex culture of Roman Egypt.
|
|
