Portrait of a Bearded Man

A.D. 100

Medium

Tempera on wood

Dimensions

36 × 37.5 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-135326

Romano-Egyptian portrait of a man in tempera (animal glue) on a square panel of fig wood. Although the panel’s manufacture, appearance and commemorative iconography belong to the world of Romano-Egyptian funerary portraiture, this never served as a funerary mask inserted into mummy wrappings. The unpainted, beveled edge on all four sides of the square panel indicates it was once framed. Although rare, other framed portraits like this have survived. They are reminiscent of the tradition of *pinakes* described by the Roman author Pliny and seen in Campanian wall painting where they are depicted hanging on walls. The well-known framed portrait found by Flinders Petrie in his 1889 Hawara excavations (British Museum [1889,1018.1](https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1889-1018-1)) was found in a tomb adjacent to a plain wrapped mummy. The man wears a traditional white tunic and mantle with a narrow *clavus* (woven stripe), basic Roman dress also worn by priests and commonly seen in other male funeral portraits. He holds symbols of his afterlife: a wreath of rose petals (associated with the cult of Isis) in his left hand and a spray of verdant olive leaves (symbolic of fert…