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Lot Essay
This well-published portrait of a young man with the scruffy facial hair of a late adolescent is distinctive for the variety of textures achieved in paint, as well as for its color palette, featuring light pink clavi on his chiton, all against a matte grey background. The grey and pink palette, as well the format with squared top, are typical of portraits from the site of er-Rubayat (also the likely origin of the other two mummy portraits presented in this sale). Other important features of portraits from er-Rubayat include the shading achieved through fine red lines, as well as the dark line separating his lips.
Although K. Parlasca in his Ritratti di mummie series (op. cit.) consistently placed the er-Rubayat portraits very late in his chronological scheme – mid to late 4th century A.D. – based on the apparent “crudity” of style, more recent scholarship has ascribed a significantly earlier placement to the 2nd century A.D. As S. Walker and M. Bierbrier inform (p. 86 in Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt), “careful observation of hairstyles, jewellery and clothing worn by the subjects of the portraits reveals that they are approximately contemporary with the grander encaustic panels from Hawara.” The apparent “crudity” of the portraits derives from the material employed – tempera rather than encaustic on wood. Features such as the hair of this young man combed into straight locks and the light beard and moustache occur also on plaster mummy masks from the same era (see no. 151 in Walker and Bierbrier, op. cit.).
Although K. Parlasca in his Ritratti di mummie series (op. cit.) consistently placed the er-Rubayat portraits very late in his chronological scheme – mid to late 4th century A.D. – based on the apparent “crudity” of style, more recent scholarship has ascribed a significantly earlier placement to the 2nd century A.D. As S. Walker and M. Bierbrier inform (p. 86 in Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt), “careful observation of hairstyles, jewellery and clothing worn by the subjects of the portraits reveals that they are approximately contemporary with the grander encaustic panels from Hawara.” The apparent “crudity” of the portraits derives from the material employed – tempera rather than encaustic on wood. Features such as the hair of this young man combed into straight locks and the light beard and moustache occur also on plaster mummy masks from the same era (see no. 151 in Walker and Bierbrier, op. cit.).