Portrait of a Man from Antinoe

The artwork

We do not know where this man was found: scholars worked it out by looking at how he was painted, and traced him to Antinoe, a city on the Nile. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The dark skin, the short hair, the beard following the line of the jaw.
• A portrait of great strength that gives character to a study or a hallway.
• A gift for anyone who loves ancient faces and painting.

The man lived in Egypt between AD 190 and 230, when the country was a province of Rome. His face was painted with colours mixed into wax on a limewood panel two millimetres thick, which was placed over the mummy's face among the bandages when he died. It is one of the portraits we call Fayum portraits, after the region of Egypt where many were found.

The portrait has been in the Louvre in Paris for so long that nobody knows any more where it came from. To place it, scholars compared it with other portraits: the way it is painted and the shape of the panel resemble those found at Antinoe, ancient Antinoopolis, the city founded by the emperor Hadrian. The date also comes from the style. The very short hair, the moustache and the short beard along the jaw follow the fashion of those years, and the clavus, the coloured stripe of Roman clothing, runs down the tunic.

In a study or a hallway it is a face you keep looking at. It is a gift for anyone who loves antiquity and portraits full of life.

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