Portrait of a thin-faced, bearded man

A portrait of a young man with curly hair and large eyes demonstrates the stunning, lifelike funerary portraiture from Roman Imperial Egypt. These portraits of elites from the Greco-Egyptian community in Roman Imperial Egypt are called Fayum portraits.

Fayum portraits were painted on wood panels, and sometimes on cartonnage, using encaustic and sometimes tempera. Encaustic helped the artist achieve the striking likeness of this man’s portrait. Encaustic is made from pigment mixed with wax, and comes from Greece. Artists prepared wood panels with wax or glue. Then, they either spread the pigmented wax on hot and used a hard tool to blend it after drying, or they emulsified the wax into a paste and blended it directly. Subtle blending gives this man’s skin a dewy quality, while shading highlights his dramatic cheekbones.