Young Man from Thebes

The artwork

A short beard along the jaw, a faint moustache and two enormous eyes: this is one of the last portraits painted for the mummies of Roman Egypt. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The dark face, the large eyes, the short beard and the white tunic.
• A strong portrait that gives character to a study or an entrance hall.
• A gift for anyone who loves ancient Egypt.

It was painted at Thebes, the old city of the pharaohs in Upper Egypt, around AD 250, in tempera, colours mixed with glue, on a lime wood panel. In those years the story of the portraits we call Fayum portraits, which had begun more than two centuries earlier, was coming to an end: around the middle of the third century families stopped having the faces of their dead painted on panels.

The painter worked in clean lines: the outline of the face, the thick eyebrows, the strong neck rising from the white tunic with its red stripe, the mantle on the shoulder. The result is a young and serious man who holds the gaze of whoever looks at him. The panel entered the Louvre in Paris in 1826, together with other portraits from the same city.

In a study it brings home one of the last faces of a tradition that lasted more than two centuries. It is a gift for anyone who loves history.

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