The Exhibition
The Fayum portraits represent the most extraordinary surviving evidence of the real faces of the ancient world, preserved to this day solely by the sands of the Egyptian desert. Held at the prestigious Museo dell’Ara Pacis in Rome, the exhibition “The Power Of Portraiture. Egypt And Rome. The Fayum Portraits” offers an unmissable opportunity to view a remarkable selection of these masterpieces gathered from museums across the globe.
Divided into a prologue and five thematic sections, the exhibition explores the origins, materials, and significance of a unique artistic phenomenon that flourished in Roman Egypt between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. From the early interactions between the Hellenistic-Egyptian world and the Roman Empire to the rise of portraiture as a declaration of personal identity and social status, the exhibition illustrates how the Roman impulse to preserve individual memory merged with ancient Egyptian funerary rites.
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Highlights include loans from Egyptian collections – featured prominently by the Two Brothers Tondo from Antinoopolis, a masterwork of ancient painting restored specifically for this occasion – and extensive loans from the Musée du Louvre, alongside the famous portrait of Isidora from the Getty Museum, the stunning Eirene from Stuttgart, and an unreleased portrait recently uncovered by an Italian archaeological mission. Complementing the painted panels are Roman marble sculptures, rare plaster funerary casts from the Vatican Necropolis, everyday artifacts, and exquisite gold jewelry from Pompeii and Herculaneum, restoring these painted faces to their authentic historical and cultural setting.
