These eleven portraits are part of the find by Mr. Flinders Petrie, in
his excavations at Hawara, in the Fayoum (Middle Egypt), and are of
great interest as supplying a fresh link in the historical development
of art as exhibited in the National Gallery. Here is portraiture in
its infancy. But even these portraits, done probably by Græco-Egyptian
artists in the second or third century A.D., are later developments
from an earlier stage. They were affixed to the outside covering of
mummies in a position corresponding to the head of the corpse:[237] the
exact arrangement can be seen in two mummies from the same "find," now
in the British Museum. "They are derived," says Miss Amelia B. Edwards,
"by a clearly traced process of evolution from the portrait-heads
first modelled in stucco upon Egyptian mummy cases, and then painted.
From coloured portraiture in high relief to coloured portraiture on
flexible canvas, where a certain amount of relief was obtained by
the prominence of the bandaged face beneath, was one step; and from
the flexible canvas to the panel upon which the semblance of relief
was given by light and shadow and foreshortening was another and
far more important step. It marked the transition from the Eastern
to the Western school of painting." The portraits are painted with
pigments of rich colour on thin panels of cedar wood, wax being the
medium employed. "The rather lumpy surface or _impasto_ which comes
from the use of a wax medium is very obvious. The melted wax rapidly
hardened when the brush touched the cold surface of the panel, and so
prevented the pigment from being laid in a smooth, even manner. The
wood was not, like stucco, sufficiently absorbent for the subsequent
application of heat to get rid of the lumpy surface by driving the
superfluous wax below the surface" (Middleton's _Remains of Ancient
Rome_, i. 100). The persons buried with these panel portraits were
mostly of Greek origin; but some--as, for instance, the man (No. 1265,
presented by Mr. Haworth)--seemed rather to be of the Roman type.
The faces exhibit all variations, from living grace to the emptiest
vacuity. It has been suggested that "the better portraits were painted
from the life, whilst in other cases the painter was perhaps only
sent for after death, and this may account for the vague and lifeless
looks of many of the portraits, inanimate in spite of the wide,
open, and vacuous smile." It will be noticed that "the style of the
portraits is usually conventional precisely in those details which
make the difference between one living face and another. The eyes,
which more than any other feature should impart the living expression
in all these cases, are executed in a perfunctory and formal manner.
And they are, moreover, in many cases too large for the face. This
is not merely due to the inability of the artists, for many of these
portraits show a real grasp of character and a distinct technical
skill in the modelling, notably in that, perhaps, most difficult
of tasks, the indication of the play of muscles around the mouth.
Under these circumstances I think no one will deny that the measure
of success achieved in some of the best of these portraits is very
remarkable. The old man in particular (1265) shows a breadth of style
and a quiet humour which reminds us of some of the Dutch masters of
the Teniers school. Of course there are good and bad among them;
the quality probably depended to some extent upon the price which
the relative could afford to pay. One wonders what the price may
have been, especially when we read of the enormous sums which great
pictures fetched in the palmy days of Greek painting. Most of these
people seem to have been well to do, as the gold wreaths of the men
and the jewellery of the women prove" (Cecil Smith, ch. vi. of W. M.
F. Petrie's _Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe_: 1889). No. 1261 retains the
greater part of a gilt gesso border, stamped or modelled with a wavy
tendril and bud pattern.