In 1888, Sir Flinders Petrie, a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, discovered a further 81 mummy portraits at Hawara, an ancient Roman cemetery also located in the Fayum area.
#FAYUM MUMMY PORTRAITS SERIES#
Theodor von Graf, a Viennese antiquarian, bought the paintings and through a series of exhibitions in Berlin, Munich, Paris, Brussels, London, and New York, made them widely known to the public at the time. This type of portrait was unknown until 1887, when farmers discovered many of them at er-Rubayat, in the Fayum region. No other region of the Roman Empire has preserved such a large number of portrait paintings. The name “Fayum mummy portraits” originates from the region they were first discovered, though other portraits have been found elsewhere in Egypt, especially at Saqqara, Thebes, Antinopolis and Akhmim. These paintings, created with wax or tempera on wood panels or canvas shrouds, were made during the Roman era, from about AD 20 to AD 300. Mummy portraits replaced the traditional three-dimensional masks and also enabled identification of the deceased. They also introduced a new custom of attaching painted portraits to mummified remains. Many Romans began to settle in Egypt and adopted local funeral rites, such as embalming. “These beautiful portraits, that Charles Currelly once held, literally put a face to the ROM’s Romano-Egyptian artifacts.”Įgypt became a Roman province in 30 BC after Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, were defeated at the Battle of Actium by the future first Roman Emperor, Augustus. “Today, about a thousand Fayum portraits have survived to the present, but sadly many are damaged and incomplete,” says Paul Denis, Assistant Curator, (Greek, Etruscan, Roman & Byzantine). And now, a century later, thanks to the generosity of the Mona Campbell Endowment Fund and the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust, the two portraits are back together again. Currelly, the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology’s first Director, acquired the two portraits at auction in London, he sold one of them to the National Gallery of Canada later that year. These striking portraits bring to life the men, women and children who once lived in Roman Egypt over 1,700 years ago.Īfter Charles T. Some are wonderfully preserved, and they are an unmatched source of information on Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultural traditions. Romano-Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits, which originally covered the face of mummies, hold great significance since they represent some of the earliest known and finest painted portraits in the history of art. The addition of this portrait to our outstanding Eaton Gallery has been well worth the wait.” “Together, these luminous works speak to us across time and provide a rare glimpse into the evocative and enduring traditions of ancient Egyptian society during the Roman era. “To have this pair of Fayum portraits reunited is exciting for the Museum and for our visitors,” says Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. After acquiring the two portraits, one of them remained at the ROM, while the other went to the National Gallery of Canada.
Currelly, one of the ROM’s founders, obtained the two mummy portraits from Sotheby’s in 1912.
The paintings will both be on display at the ROM starting May 18, 2019, in the Museum’s Eaton Gallery of Rome. Furthermore, our multi-analytical, non-invasive approach yields further details regarding the fragment’s pictorial technique and constituting materials, based on spectral and morphological analysis and cross-sectional examination.TORONTO, February 28, 2019- After more than 100 years of separation, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is reuniting two extraordinarily well-preserved Fayum mummy portraits. The unexpected age resulting from 14C analysis suggests the need to reconsider previous assumptions regarding the period of production of the Fayum corpus. Our study introduces the use of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) to assess the age of a fragment of an encaustic painting belonging to the corpus of the Fayum portraits. So far, their production period has been defined essentially on the basis of the relevant differences in their pictorial style. The lack of proper archaeological documentation of the numerous excavated portraits currently prevents their chronological dating, be it absolute or relative. Examination of these artworks may provide insight into the Roman Empire’s trade and economic and social structure during one of its most crucial yet still hazy times of transition. Fayum mummy portraits, painted around 2000 years ago, represent a fascinating fusion of Egyptian and Graeco-Roman funerary and artistic traditions.
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