left:
A man, ca. 25 - 75 AD, encaustic on linen.
[picture no.32 from the book]
right: Hermione Grammatike (Hermione the schoolteacher), Tiberian,
ca. 14 - 37 AD, encaustic on linen.
[picture no.33 from the book]
These portraits, still on their mummies, where found together in a
group burial. Both are among the earliest known. Their intricate
bandages are remarkable, especially those of Hermione, in which
hundreds of yards of very expensive, highest quality linen are
wound
in layers
in a rhomboid pattern. Thus though she wears only
earrings, and there are no gilded ornaments, the young schoolteacher
clearly came from a rich family. The man's portrait is of
exceptionally high quality, and has a rich oil-paint texture
suggesting wax used cold. It seems likely that it was copied from a
portrait painted long before he died, for the mummy was that of a
very old man. Hermione, on the other hand, was probably only about
25 years old when she died.
