Mummy Shroud with Painted Portrait of a Youth

A.D. 220–250

Medium

Tempera on linen

Dimensions

49.5 × 35.5 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-137251

Romano-Egyptian linen shroud with a half-length portrait of a deceased man holding a cluster of grapes (symbolic of fertility) in his right hand and a funerary garland of (probably) rose petals in his left. Shrouds of finely woven linen with portraits of the deceased provided an alternative to the use of wooden portrait panels, and they follow traditional funerary iconography equivalent to the panel portraits. Although many body length shrouds have survived (as Boston, Museum of Fine Arts [54.993](https://collections.mfa.org/objects/148455/funerary-shroud-of-tasheretwedjahor?ctx=b1508c51-765b-4ae9-ac8d-9c95460bdb4b&idx=4)), often, as in this case, the shroud was made to cover only the upper body of the mummy. Most surviving shrouds have been painted in tempera (pigment suspended in animal glue); though rare, encaustic (pigment suspended in wax) examples do survive. The man’s short Severan (AD 193-235) hairstyle is commensurate with Carbon-14 results providing a date range of AD 85-221. The overall style is simple, even provincial; the message of this portrait lies in its funerary attributes rather than on a sophisticated depiction of age or facial expression. He wears a short nec…