Fayum Portraits - The Beautiful Isidora (The J. Paul Getty Museum)

I’d like you to meet Isidora. She is about 2000 years old and she lived in Roman Egypt. She is an example of the beautiful Fayum portraits that have enchanted researches and lay people alike for centuries. There are about 1000 similarly beguiling, exquisite portraits in existence, scattered in different museums around the world.

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She is executed in encaustic – a mixture of beeswax and pigment, applied with a spatula in thick but masterfully finished layers. The intricate black curls that frame her porcelain face are painted with meticulous accuracy – they even cast a shadow over her forehead. I love the detail of the reflection of the white specs of light in her wistful brown eyes.

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The portrait was most likely painted while Isidora was still alive and then, after her death, attached to the “red-shroud” when she was mummified for her burial. Her name was written out in black paint on the upper right shoulder of the mummy. It is written in Greek – ICIΔOPA.

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That lavender dress, those pearl earrings, that amethyst and emerald necklace… Isn’t she just stunning?

Attributed to the Isidora Master (Romano-Egyptian, active 100 - 125)

Mummy Portrait of a Woman, A.D. 100, Encaustic on linden wood; gilt; linen

48 × 36 × 12.8 cm (18 7/8 × 14 3/16 × 5 1/16 in.), 81.AP.42

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California