Youth with a Surgical Cut in One Eye

The artwork

The painter even painted a medical treatment: the straight line under this young man's right eye suggests a cut made to treat it. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The young face, the short dark hair, the light tunic.
• An honest portrait that gives character to a study.
• A gift for anyone who loves the history of medicine.

The young man lived in Egypt between AD 190 and 210, when the country was part of the Roman Empire. His face was painted with colours mixed into wax on a thin limewood panel which, when he died, was placed over the mummy's face among the bandages. It is one of the portraits we call Fayum portraits, after the region of Egypt where many were found.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which holds the original, has looked closely at the eye. The right eye shows signs of a condition that had been treated: on the lower lid there is a straight line, like the one left by an incision; below it is a greyish fold of skin, the lashes are missing and the cheek on that side sags slightly. The painter could have painted a perfect eye. He chose to paint it as it was, because the portrait had to look like the young man.

It suits a study or a waiting room, and it speaks of medicine from eighteen centuries ago. It is an original gift for a doctor or an eye specialist, or for anyone who loves real faces.

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