The Tondo of the Two Brothers, one of the putting and strange Fayum mummy portraits, has been restored by a joint crew of Egyptian and Italian conservators.
The two,000-year-old portrait is one in every of a whole lot of encaustic-on-wood panel work found on the Fayum necropolis southwest of Cairo. They’re notable for the realism (albeit idealized in age and attractiveness) of the portraiture. Painted on wooden then sealed with beeswax, the panels have been positioned over the face of the deceased and held in place with an intricate criss-cross wrapping of linen bandages.
This instance is uncommon for its round form and depicts two younger males standing facet by facet. Whereas double portraits are recognized, they’re much less frequent than particular person ones and that is particularly uncommon being a double portrait on a spherical panel 62 cm (24 inches) in diameter.
The wooden had suffered intensive injury from boring bugs, probably termites, which prompted elements of the painted figures to separate. An earlier intervention had additionally backfired, leaving fragments that have been initially a part of the mouth and chin of the determine on the fitting.
Conservators added assist to the paint within the broken areas and stabilized them with a light-weight filler matching the colour of the wooden. In addition they repaired displaced fragments, eradicating them, flattening them and reinforcing them earlier than inserting them again of their unique places with balsa wooden helps. The remedy has left the painted floor extra visually built-in and constant. Ultrasound scans of the panel throughout the conservation course of revealed an historical darkening varnish was used within the hair of each males. This provides new details about how the portraits have been made.
Hisham El-Leithy, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), highlighted the portrait’s archaeological and inventive significance and the significance of its conservation. He defined that the work is outstanding not just for the standard and expressiveness of its portray, but in addition as a result of its type, approach, and state of preservation present beneficial proof for finding out portraiture in Roman Egypt.
He famous that the conservation work required explicit care as a result of each the picket assist and the painted floor have been fragile. Collaboration between conservators from the Egyptian Museum and their Italian counterparts additionally supplied a possibility for scientific {and professional} alternate. The crew used a minimal-intervention method that revered the portrait’s authenticity, restoring its visible coherence whereas preserving proof of its lengthy historical past.
The Tondo of the Two Brothers will now go on show in Rome, leaving Egypt for the primary time to be the centerpiece of a brand new exhibition: The Energy of the Portrait: Egypt and Rome, Faces of Fayum, which runs on the Ara Pacis Museum from November 5, 2026, to Could 2, 2027. It is going to function greater than 110 objects, together with 24 painted portraits, funerary shrouds, plaster portraits and jewellery.
