Description

The Fayum portraits owe their name to the fact that most of them were found in that area in Egypt. The most beautiful of the surviving portraits have clearly Hellenic influences, with their stylistic roots in the so-called Alexandrian school, and are clearly the pioneers of Byzantine iconοgraphy

The almost metaphysical way in which the depicted persons appears to be looking at us, conveys the spirituality of an afterlife, and is the most important commonality between the Fayum portraits and Iconography.