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Ruins Of 7,000-Year-Old City Found At Site of "Mummy Portraits"- PICTURES

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Bianca
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« on: January 30, 2008, 02:59:25 pm »








                                                    19th century collectors





Although interest in Ancient Egypt steadily increased after that period, further finds of mummy
portraits did not become known before the early 19th century. The provenance of these first
new finds are unclear; they may come from Saqqara as well, or perhaps from Thebes.

In 1820, the Baron of Minotuli acquired several mummy portraits for a German collector, but
they became part of a whole shipload of Egyptian artifacts lost in the North Sea. In 1827,
Léon de Laborde brought two portraits, supposedly found in Memphis, to Europe, one of which
can today be seen at the Louvre, the other in the British Museum. Ippolito Rosellini, a member
of Jean-François Champollion's 1828/29 expedition to Egypt brought a further portrait back to
Florence. It is so similar to de Laborde's specimens that it thought to be from the same source.


 During the 1820s, the British Consul General to Egypt, Henry Salt, sent several further portraits
to Paris and London. Some of them were long considered portraits of the family of the Theban
Archon Pollios Soter, a historical character known from written sources, but this has turned out
to be incorrect.

Once again, a long period elapsed before more mummy portraits came to light.

In 1887, Daniel Marie Fouquet heard of the discovery of numerous portrait mummies in a cave.
He set off to inspect them some days later, but arrived too late, as the finders had used the
painted plaques for firewood during the three previous cold desert nights. Fouquet acquired
the remaining two of what had originally been fifty portraits. While the exact location of this
find is unclear, the likely source is from er-Rubayat.

At that location, not long after Fouquet's visit, the Viennese art trader Theodor Graf found
several further images, which he tried to sell as profitably as possible. He engaged the
famous Leipzig-based Egyptologist Georg Ebers to publish his finds. He produced presentation
folders to advertise his individual finds throughout Europe. Although little was known about
their archaeological find contexts, Graf went as far as to ascribe the portraits to known
Ptolemaic pharaohs by analogy with other works of art, mainly coin portraits.

None of these associations were particularly well argued or convincing, but they gained him
much attention, not least because he gained the support of well-known scholars like Rudolf
Virchow. As a result, mummy portraits became the centre of much attention.

By the late 19th century, their very specific aesthetic made same sought-after collection
pieces, distributed by the global arts trade.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2008, 03:07:27 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.


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