When they were first discovered over a century ago, the painted panel and shroud portraits of Roman Egypt were a revelation to scholars and public alike. Even today they constitute the only corpus of coloured images of individuals to survive from classical antiquity. Many of the paintings are of outstanding aritstic quality; as a whole, they relect a range of techniques and styles, often related to specific communities. Many of the best-know portraits come from the Fayum, but portraits in various media are known form sites in the Nile Valley and along the Mediterranean coast. Here a wide range is presented, showing Roman influence coexisting with traditional Egyptian ways of commemorating the dead. This revised and augmented volume is published to coincide with the first North American exhibition of thes portraits at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Numerous panel paintings and painted masks from European and North American collections have been added.
