Their faces attract you – large expressive eyes looking like they had been frozen remembering something important. Painted on wooden panels and placed on the faces of mummified bodies in the Fayum in Greco-Roman Egypt, the paintings were supposed to guide their subjects in life after death while preserving their identities here on earth.
Discovered thousands of years later in the 19th century, portraits sparked debates on whom they did, to whom they were and what they say about the era of cultural exchange and mixed traditions. Even now they are wrapped in questions. What do these realistic faces reveal on identity and status? How do they integrate into the broader painting of art history? The mysterious portraits of Fayum: faces of ancient Egypt Leans in this enigma, offering a new opportunity to think about what we know – and I do not know – about these extraordinary works.
The book, a reissue of a publication of the author and the artist Euphrosyne doxiadis First published 30 years ago, offers the opportunity to re -examine and recontextualize these remarkable works through a modern lens. The new preface by the Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif challenges to think beyond the limits of artistic silos, asking whether it is more important to categorize art or contextualize it. By situating Fayum portraits at the intersection of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Syrian and Jewish traditions, the book opens a space to understand how cultural practices evolve and mix. This approach echoes wider efforts to deconstruct and extend the traditional artistic canon, reminding us that the act of categorization is, in itself, a deeply Western impulse.
Portraits are visually arrested, both timeless and personal – similar to the connection you would feel by looking at a darling family photograph or the image carefully placed on the program of a Baptiste funeral service. Take it Portrait of AlineAlso called Tenos, painted around 69-117 directly on the line-lin rolled around his body. Found alongside two other alleged being her daughters, the portrait of Aline captures an immediacy striking, his gaze meeting yours with a calm but undeniable force. It is intimate in a way that suggests that he may have been painted from life – a preservation not only of his image but from his humanity, his role as a mother and an eternal person.
But their beauty was also a source of discord. As Doxiadis explains, the first researchers hesitated to accept that such technically advanced works could have been created during the Greco-Roman period in Egypt, speaking of volume of biases anchored in our understanding of the history of art and the limits of linear tales of artistic progression.
Although there are several tests throughout The mysterious portraits of FayumThe emphasis is placed on imaging: large color reproductions which allow readers to immerse themselves in the craft of portraits. The book is organized in three main sections, starting with an exploration of the cultural, social and religious context of Greco-Roman Egypt and passing to the portraits themselves, providing detailed comments on their iconography and their techniques. The last section examines research sites, plunging into the origin of these works and their journey through the world of modern art.
The book does not immerse itself explicitly in the subtleties of looting or illicit trade, although it understands a section dedicated to fayum portraits whose provenance is unknown, leaving room to consider the biggest questions about Europe archaeological excavations Paintings. A portrait of Fayum housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although not mentioned in the book, was seized by the Manhattan district prosecutor's office in 2022 as part of an allegedly looted antiques. The high -level case highlights the disturbances linked to ancient artifacts and their travels in the museum collections, stressing the continuous importance of transparency and responsibility and adding weight to the wider questions to which the book is gesture, although it is not explicitly addressed to them.
This book resonates particularly as an artist involved in Flight in Egypt: black artists and ancient Egypt, 1876 – nowAn exhibition to the Met which explores how black artists have committed and reinvented ancient Egyptian art, history and symbolism in the past 150 years. While my work often engages with ancient Egyptian signifiers such as the Bust of NefertitiI approach these more conceptually themes, given their meaning in a broader global and historical context. This book, on the other hand, offers a targeted study of a specific artistic tradition and its intersections with other cultures.
The wealth preserved of colors – the ochres, the deep reds and the gold – feel almost magical, a testimony of the dry climate which has protected these works for centuries. Each portrait, while following a shared aesthetic tradition, reveals something unique in the artist's hand, the individual's individuality and the cultural moment of his creation. Take, for example, the portrait of a man from the end of Flavin-Trajanic (81–117 CE). Compared to the delicate and linear brushstones of Aline and the sweetness of her gaze, this portrait is daring, almost commander. Painted with cold wax colds with brushes and mixed with oil or egg, it has a textured quality and in layers which makes the face of the sculptural man, as if he could get out of the panel.
What connects my practice to these works, however, is not style or techniques – is the idea of cultural production as a discussion. These portraits are part of a broader dialogue, which covers time and space, showing how traditions evolve and adapt through the hands and ideas of artists who engage with them.
The book feels aligned with this Flight in Egypt Aims to do: recognize how Egyptian artistic practices inspired people around the world, while asking how artists can engage them in a thoughtful way – with respect, even – instead of doing in an exploited manner. The book and the exhibition push us to consider what it means to take cultural symbols and make yours. Who has the right to do this? Under what circumstances? And what happens when these symbols have been deleted or redesigned by people who have been denied access to their own history? In the case of Flight in Egypt, It is a question of knowing how black artists, often working in systems where their voices have been erased or minimized, recover ancient Egyptian imaging as a means of linking connections with a wider African past.
At the same time, the book and the exhibition force us to face the tensions between honoring shared stories and facing erasure. It is not only a question of celebrating the ways in which cultures mix and overlap – it is a question of recognizing the people and the communities who are sidelined in the process. Whether it is black artists in contemporary contexts or ancient Egyptian craftsmen eclipse Through Greco-Roman influences, there is always a question of who remembers and who is excluded.
In the end, what makes the portraits Fayum so captivating is their ability to disturb our understanding of art history. They question the hypotheses on technical progression in Egypt and open up possibilities for innovations neglected in a similar way elsewhere. This disturbance is a gift, inviting us to understand the history of art not as a series of isolated moments but as a tapestry of influences and collaborations.
The mysterious portraits of FayumSo, concerns connection – through time, cultures and geographies, all anchored in the eyes of those whose names and stories have been lost in history. This is how art can maintain space for several identities, several truths. And as I think of my work and my peers Flight in EgyptI see the same expansiveness, this same refusal to be enlisted. This reminds us that the identity is slippery, that the property is complicated and that the act of creation – whether 2000 years ago or today – is always a conversation.
The mysterious portraits of Fayum: faces of ancient Egypt (2025) by Euphrosyne Doxiadis is published by Thames & Hudson and is available online and via independent booksellers.
