Child with a Bird

The artwork

A child holds a small bird and the Egyptian sign of life close to the chest, and a pomegranate in the other hand: this is how the family chose to accompany the child into the afterlife. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The child's face, the large pendant at the neck, the bird and the pomegranate.
• A tender and precious image that brings warmth to a bedroom or a study.
• A gift for anyone who loves Egypt and its symbols.

It is the upper part of a shroud, the painted cloth that wrapped the mummy. It comes from Antinoopolis, the city that the emperor Hadrian founded on the Nile, and was painted in the third century AD, when Egypt was a province of Rome. The face has the truth of the portraits we call Fayum portraits, the painted faces placed on mummies; around it the painter laid full colours and a little gold leaf.

The sign the child holds together with the bird is the ankh, the cross with a loop that Egyptian gods carry as the symbol of life. The painter placed it in the fingers of a child dressed in the fashion of the day, in a white tunic with dark stripes: two worlds, Egyptian and Roman, in one image. The fragment reached the Louvre in Paris with the finds from the excavations at Antinoopolis.

In a bedroom it brings home a small face from eighteen centuries ago, protected by the signs of life. It is a precious gift.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 40 x 60 cm (15.7 x 23.6 in)
With frame: 42 x 62 cm (16.5 x 24.4 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass