Portrait of a young woman with a gilded wreath

Portrait of a young woman with a gilded wreath

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This panel was not painted in the areas where the mummy wrappings have would covered the edges. Once in the wrappings, the background was gilded, and a gilded line was drawn to frame the lower end of the painting. Gold leaf was also used for the wreath and the lower necklace, a gold chain with a crescent (called a lunula). The woman's face and neck are thickly painted in cream, heightened with pink on the cheeks and nose and around the eyes. The shades are built up from a dark ground. The woman's oval face, large eyes, and slightly open lips give the portrait considerable presence. Venus rings on her neck call attention to her youthful plump beauty. The hairstyle is typical for the period of the Emperor Hadrian, except for the corkscrew locks around the forehead, which may be a regional style. Link to the Artist Project Y.Z. Kami on Egyptian mummy portraits

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of a young woman with a gilded wreathPortrait of a young woman with a gilded wreathPortrait of a young woman with a gilded wreathPortrait of a young woman with a gilded wreathPortrait of a young woman with a gilded wreath

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.