Greco-Roman Fayum portrait. Private commission.
Created in the style of Fayum mummy portraits from the 1st to 3rd Century AD Greco-Roman period. These portraits would have covered the faces of bodies of loved ones that were mummified for burial.
Mounted into the bands of cloth that were used to wrap the bodies, almost all have now been detached from the mummies. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest, viewed frontally. In terms of artistic tradition, the images clearly derive from Greco-Roman artistic traditions.
The wood panel has been split in places and areas of paint sanded back to expose the surface and then stained to give the illusion of age.
N.B. Choice of distressed or non-distressed wood panel finish.