APPEAR Project

Ancient mummy portraits are unique examples of paintings that survive from Roman-era Egypt. Portraits of the deceased were created on wooden panels and linen shrouds, and incorporated into the wrappings of mummified human remains, combining the technical methods and style of Greco-Roman culture with the rituals of an Egyptian funerary tradition that began over 2,500 years prior. Roughly 1,000 mummy portraits are housed in collections around the world today, bringing viewers face-to-face with people who lived 2,000 years ago.

While they first attracted attention in the 19th century, until recently few Romano-Egyptian panel paintings had undergone a comprehensive technical investigation into how they were made. When a full analysis is not performed, conclusions are based on comparative examples or assumptions, both of which lead scholars to perpetuate incorrect data.

To expand what we know about these paintings, it is important for institutions to collaborate, accessing hundreds of data samples rather than just a few. Therefore, we constructed a digital database to improve understanding and share information. Much remains to be learned about these ancient artworks and their far-reaching influence on art history more broadly.

The identification of pigment mixtures including indigo (blue) combined with madder (red/pink) to create purple, or with orpiment (yellow) to produce green, has shed new light on how ancient artists worked. Previously thought to be rare, the mixture has been identified on numerous mummy portraits (1st–3rd century CE), providing startling new evidence for the archeological and historic record.The mixture of indigo and orpiment (described as vergaut) had not been identified on an artifact before the 6th century, setting its first appearance back as much as 500 years.

Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Art Institute of Chicago
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford
British Museum, London
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, CA
Cleveland Museum of Art
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Fitzwilliam, Cambridge, UK
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, Chicago, IL
The J. Paul Getty Museum/Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles
Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, Baltimore
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Manchester Museum, UK
The Menil Collection, Houston
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Michael C. Carlos Museum, Atlanta
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Museo Egizio, Turin
Museum August Kestner, Hannover, Germany
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum of Russian Icons, Concord, MA
National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
National Gallery London
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
National Museum in Warsaw
The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Nicholson Museum, Sydney University Museums
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
Paul and Alexandra Canelopoulos Museum (CAMU), Athens, Greece
The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley
Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim, Germany
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden, Leiden, Netherlands
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose
Royal Museum of Mariemont, Belgium
San Antonio Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Saint Louis Art Museum
Seattle Art Museum, Washington
The Egypt Centre, Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Swansea, UK
The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
University of Georgia (Lamar Dodd School of Art), Athens
University of Heidelberg, Germany
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

The first APPEAR conference was held at the Getty Villa on May 17–18, 2018 focusing on significant outcomes of the project’s international effort. Presentations by project participants highlighted the first five years of collaborative work and addressed evolving investigations, observations, and data collected. The papers are available online and in print through Getty Publications.

The second conference, hosted by the Allard Pierson in Amsterdam and co-organized by the Getty Museum Antiquities Conservation Department, took place on October 19–21, 2022. Seventeen papers were delivered by specialists in the field, highlighting the technical investigations, observations and data collected to date. Papers delivered at the conference will be published at a later date, but abstracts may be viewed here.