Mummy Portrait of a Bearded Man
Attributed to the Brooklyn Painter
Romano-Egyptian
Egypt
A.D. 220–250
Tempera on wood
Object Number: 79.AP.142
34 × 25 cm (13 3/8 × 9 13/16 in.)
This Romano-Egyptian funerary portrait of a man is painted in tempera on a cedar of Lebanon wooden panel and would originally have been fitted over the face of a mummy in preparation for burial. A rare import to Egypt, cedar of Lebanon was used for the construction of elite funerary and devotional equipment. Carbon 14 analysis has provided a date of 196-55 B.C. for the wood, several centuries earlier than the stylistic dating of the panel at A.D. 225-250. This chronological inconsistency may have resulted from the wood having been removed from an earlier tomb and reused centuries later.
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