The Face of a Faiyum Woman in Blue 2nd Century AD (Extreme Digital Reconstruction)

ARTIST NOTES: Painfully little is known about the subjects of many of these funerary portraits from so many centuries ago. Apart from details about their hair, clothing, and jewelry, which have their own interest groups who can greater pinpoint information about their culture and community based on those factors, next to nothing is known about the people themselves. Though many portraits have been separated from their original coffins long since, the mummies that were still intact with their portraits still attached to the head of the coffin were, when examined forensically, basically telling the truth about the approximate age of the decedent. This indicates a high death rate among those under 40, for reasons not always known.

There are many different skill sets in art, and it may be that the quality of artist depended on what the family was able to afford. In some cases like these, it seems, a cheaper and less skilled painter was all the family could manage.

For my part, I was curious, as always, what the artist was actually seeing based on how they drew the features of the deceased person. So, rather than "doing over" an ancient work in a modern style, which is an accusation leveled at me by many fly-by viewers, this is using the medium and the general features already provided to try to uncover who was actually underneath it all. It will always be a guess at best, because if the artist was way off in drawing some of the facial shapes, I’d have no way of knowing it without the skull to compare it to.

**Caveat: My primary interest in in the face itself. Fussy details like hairstyles or jewelry or clothing hold little to no fascination for me and I don’t like to devote a lot of time to them unless there’s something essential or iconic about one or more of those details.

Original Image: Fayum mummy portrait, female (c. 2nd Century), Bonhams
License: US-PD

"Faiyum Woman in Blue, 2nd Century" 2023. Digital Art. (c) M.A. Ludwig

Music: "Meditations by the Earth" from album "Meditations by the Earth"(c) 2008
Composed & performed by M.A. Ludwig

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