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Portrait of a Man Wearing a Laurel Wreath
Roman Period, early to mid–2nd century
- Medium
- Lime (linden) wood, beeswax, pigments, gold, textile, and natural resin
- Classification
- Funerary Object
- Dimensions
- 41.9 × 24.1 × 0.2 cm (16 1/2 × 9 1/2 × 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Al Fayyum
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This portrait belongs to a large group of similar works known as “Fayum portraits,” so-named for the region in northern Egypt in which many have been discovered. To create this man’s likeness, the artist painted a thin piece of wood with encaustic, or pigmented wax, a medium that not only gave the impression of three-dimensionality but also resisted fading and deterioration in the dry climate of Egypt. These highly individualized and lifelike portraits conveyed the wealth and status of the person depicted through clothing, jewelry, and other embellishments, such as the gold wreath of laurels worn by this man.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
