Woman with Black Curls

The artwork

Short hair full of black curls, pearl earrings and a gold necklace with a pendant: this woman from Thebes has a style all of her own. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The black curls, the large eyes, the gold necklace and the pale mantle.
• A warm and lively portrait that brings light to a living room or a study.
• An original gift for someone dear.

She was painted at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, in the time of the emperors of the Severan family, between AD 200 and 250, when Egypt had been a province of Rome for more than two centuries. The painter used tempera, colours mixed with glue, on a lime wood panel. Like the other portraits we call Fayum portraits, it was placed over the face of the mummy, among the bandages, so that the woman would keep her appearance in the afterlife.

Thebes had been the great city of the pharaohs, the city of the temples of Karnak and Luxor and of the Valley of the Kings. This panel comes from the west bank of the Nile, where the dead were buried, and entered the Louvre in Paris in 1826, sixty years before the great discoveries of the late nineteenth century made the Fayum portraits famous.

In a living room it brings home a woman of eighteen centuries ago, with a hairstyle that looks modern. It is an original and refined gift.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass