“Portrait of a Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath”
This encaustic painted and gilded wooded piece, titled “Portrait of a Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath” is a Fayum mummy portrait from Egypt that dates to AD 120-140 during the Coptic Period, or the Late Roman period.
Fayum mummy portraits (or Faiyum portraits) were realistic portrait paintings of the deceased that were created to be placed onto the faces of dead, and then wrapped up with them. There is an obvious Greco-Roman artistic influence on these pieces. This painting has been gilded; the wreath in the woman’s hair and the bottom necklace have been accentuated with gold leaf.
Notice how the gilded paint does not extend to the edges of the wood. That is because this piece was gilded after the board was wrapped up with the person. The woman in the painting wears her hair in a style that was popular during the period of Emperor Hadrian. Notice the small corkscrew curls that line her face. She is wearing a gorgeous assortment of jewelry. Notice the golden necklace with a lunar moon hanging from it, a piece of jewelry known as a lunula.
“Portrait of a Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath” is currently in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the United States.
For more on Fayum Mummy Portraits, please visit some background about them here.
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