Customer Reviews

Ancient Faces : Mummy Portraits in Roman Egypt (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)

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This exhibition is a facinating personal document of the Roman mummy portraits and their Egyptian and greek influenced hybrid artworks. The incredible freshness of the works themselves is lost in the printing here. Perhaps the encaustic is difficult to photograph? Anyway the topic and text is wonderful, but the images pale next to the 1st person experience of these vital energizing works of the Roman era.A good book to own, if you saw the show it's better.

The book is large and full of portraits from diferent sites in Egypt, not only the Fayum, which are not always included in other books. It contains several articles from diferent specialists conserning the history, techniques, archaeological facts and findings as well as the dating of these objects, which are very usefull and enlightening. Three fourth's of the book presents the portraits themselves and the study cases of each one of them. Unfortunetly, the portraits are not always full length page and all are placed on a white background. In this respect, the book by Berenice Geoffory-Schneiter, Fayum, is superior. Nevertheless, the book is nicely presented and a good basic book for those interest in the study of this fascinating cultural expression.

A companion to an exhibition taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, this book presents colored panel and shroud portraits of Roman Egypt. Contributors, including R. Bagnall, M. Bierbrier, K. Gschwantler, J. Taylor and S. Walker, give a concise acccount of mummy portraits and their discovery, as well as the Fayum and its people. Extensively illustrated in color, this is a useful book covering a little-known subject. An excellent reference for everyone.