Elaborately Painted Shroud of Neferhotep, Son of Herrotiou, 100-225 CE, Romano-Egyptian

  

Neferhotep’s shroud bears a Roman-style portrait. Neferhotep  avoided the cost of the typical wooden panel often used for Roman period mummy masks by instructing the artists to paint directly on the shroud. In addition, Neferhotep’s artists used less-expensive tempera rather than encaustic paint. When Neferhotep’s shroud was excavated by the French archaeologist Bernard Bruyère in 1948, parts of it were missing and were replaced by painted patches in a restoration done about 1970. The shroud entered the Brooklyn Museum’s collection in 1975.

Image: Elaborately Painted Shroud of Neferhotep, Son of Herrotiou, 100-225 CE, Romano-Egyptian at the Brooklyn Museum courtesy of the museum.