The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-12-12
PRICE THREE CENTS.
EGYPTIAN WAX PORTRAITS.
Curious Works of Art Found In the Ruins
of Buried Cities.

of Buried Cities.
When the moderns read in Pliny of the
extreme degree of excellence to which
Greek artists had attained in his day and
of the prices which some of their works
fetched, equivalent to 10000 or e12, 900
of our money, scholars and other COM
peten. authorities dismissed these as
travellers tales. They could not bring
themselves to believe that these stories
were true, or that Rubens, Holbein, Sir
Thomas Lawrence and other later celeb
rites had been anticipated if not surpass-
ed in the centuries before the Christian
era. And yet it was so, and Pliny no more
than Herodotus deserved to be called the
father of liars. The graves have given
up their dead and revealed secrets which
it was thought had been forever hidden
in the tomb. 1t is from the land Of
Egypt that these discoveries come.
The explorations on the site Of Mem
phis and Thebes had prepared the way
for the discoveries in the province of
Faiium. These consist of number of
portraits found in the sand at Rubaijat,
which are in the possession of Theodor
Graf, in Vienna, and are now on view at
the Societe Encouragement pour Fin
dustrie Rationale, A Rue de Pennies. Ac-
cording to an ancient Egyptian custom
represented at the head of the mummy
or coffin. This custom was adhered to
in the Graco-Roman epoch of Egypt,
but instead of the plastic head, which up
to that time had been alone in use, a
painting was substituted representing a
real portrait of the deceased. These
portraits, which were painted on a thin
panel of wood, were laid over the face of
the mummies, the outer bandages of the
shrouds being then wrapped about them
SO as to cover the margin of the picture,
the latter alone being visible.
A mummy of this kind, therefore
presented the appearance of a living
body, looking out of an opening in the
bandages for the survivors to gaze upon
in the coffins, the lids of which were
made to be thrown back for that pur-
pose. The only other graves where
found were opened in the winter OF
1875 by the English engineer, Mr.
Petrie, at Harvard, but the pictures in
them are said to be not nearly equal tc
the specimens discovered at Rubaijat
The tombs themselves, built in the rocks
were ransacked ages ago by thieves
who, in their search for gold, destroyed
both coffins and mummies. Luckily
the pilferers deemed the pictures to be
Of no value, so were thrown away-but
not to perish-in the dry dust of the
desert.
Herr Crafts collection numbers ninety
five specimens of varying interest in
point of execution, but all valuable as
works of art They are portraits on cy
| press wood, the more ancient being
| painted in wax colors, laid on with the
cestrum or spatula, lancet shaped in
strument-the later specimens being pro
| duced by water colors, to which was
added the yolk and white of eggs o.
other resinous binding substances The
| painting with wax was done without the
| employment of heat and without using
i
the brush, the ancients being ignorant Of
the process of dissolving wax in turpen
tine. On examining these rows of heads
gazing calmly out of large, lustrous eyes
shut now for over 1900 years, one Seems
to be brought face to face with the las
of humanity in a more real way than ha
hitherto been in our power.
One is also struck with the moderl
| look of many of these ancient portraits
| There is face of an old man of wonder
| full force of character and intellectual
power. The painter Menzel, of Berlin
has declared that nothing finer than thi
has been done in portrait painting. Tit
female faces are nearly all tinged witt
melancholy, but some are of great beau
ty, and they almost without exception
reveal traces of the distinction of th'
originals There is very modern heac
of an old lady with short gray locks
The fidelity of execution in these paint
ings is so great that doctors have beer
able to detect the existence of dropsy.-
| Architect.