Panel with Painted Image of Serapis
A.D. 100–200
Romano-Egyptian painted panel of the Greco-Egyptian divinity Serapis in tempera (animal glue) pigment on a fig wood panel. This panel pairs with the Isis panel ([74.AP.22](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/7146/), with which it is currently displayed) having been cut from the same piece of wood and painted by the same hand. Together with that panel, it originally served as the left door (to Isis’s right) of a small devotional shrine, the sides and back of which are missing. The panel’s good surface condition indicates it must have been protected by its closed position facing inward. It has been Carbon 14 dated to the first century BC-AD, but its stylistic date of around 180-200 indicates that a secondary use may be possible for the original wooden panel at the time it was fabricated into two doors.
Serapis was a Greco-Egyptian god, having been introduced into Egypt during the early Ptolemaic period (323-30 BC). When united with Isis, as the two are here, the divine couple reflected the religious needs of a combined Greek and Egyptian culture that continued into Roman Egypt (AD 30-330). Their worship would have been centered at the Serapeum in Alexandria, long the principal home of Isis.
The bust of Serapis is painted in three-quarter pose, as is Isis, eyes upturned and gazing outward (in contrast to the direct gazes of the contemporary human mummy portraits to which this is stylistically related). The panel is framed at top and bottom by painted bands of black pigment. The god is fully bearded with thickly curled hair reaching nearly to his shoulders. His unique headdress is made up of three iconographic elements: a wreath wound with golden leaves surrounding his face and fastened with an ornamental knot above his forehead; above this sits a gold diadem with a six-pointed star, and atop these, a golden kantharos covered with ivy branches. Five sets of golden branches, plant stems or large leaves, perhaps of olive, or perhaps solar rays, circle his head. He wears a brown chiton and mantle over his left shoulder. The folds are placed into shadow by carbon black pigment; carbon black also sets off the borders edging the top and bottom of the panel, and may represent the appearance of the tops and bottom edges of a true bronze shrine door. The reds, yellows, and browns were created from pigments sourced from iron oxides.
The rough pigmented edges of the top, bottom, and outside of the panel indicate it was cut down after being painted. The inside (proper left) edge of the panel is rounded from wear, presumably from functioning as a door. Native Egyptian fig wood as used here is rarely seen in the creation of Romano-Egyptian panel paintings. A batten of this wood was attached to the reverse of the panel to facilitate handling. Two cedar of Lebanon dowels appear in both panels sealing natural holes in the wood.
Serapis was a Greco-Egyptian god, having been introduced into Egypt during the early Ptolemaic period (323-30 BC). When united with Isis, as the two are here, the divine couple reflected the religious needs of a combined Greek and Egyptian culture that continued into Roman Egypt (AD 30-330). Their worship would have been centered at the Serapeum in Alexandria, long the principal home of Isis.
The bust of Serapis is painted in three-quarter pose, as is Isis, eyes upturned and gazing outward (in contrast to the direct gazes of the contemporary human mummy portraits to which this is stylistically related). The panel is framed at top and bottom by painted bands of black pigment. The god is fully bearded with thickly curled hair reaching nearly to his shoulders. His unique headdress is made up of three iconographic elements: a wreath wound with golden leaves surrounding his face and fastened with an ornamental knot above his forehead; above this sits a gold diadem with a six-pointed star, and atop these, a golden kantharos covered with ivy branches. Five sets of golden branches, plant stems or large leaves, perhaps of olive, or perhaps solar rays, circle his head. He wears a brown chiton and mantle over his left shoulder. The folds are placed into shadow by carbon black pigment; carbon black also sets off the borders edging the top and bottom of the panel, and may represent the appearance of the tops and bottom edges of a true bronze shrine door. The reds, yellows, and browns were created from pigments sourced from iron oxides.
The rough pigmented edges of the top, bottom, and outside of the panel indicate it was cut down after being painted. The inside (proper left) edge of the panel is rounded from wear, presumably from functioning as a door. Native Egyptian fig wood as used here is rarely seen in the creation of Romano-Egyptian panel paintings. A batten of this wood was attached to the reverse of the panel to facilitate handling. Two cedar of Lebanon dowels appear in both panels sealing natural holes in the wood.
Images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)