Riddles Fayum portraits.

[художник Федотов]

A lot of questions I have accumulated to Siim wonderful artifacts ...

 Primarily interested in the technological component manufacturing OP ( Fayum portraits) ... The reasoning only in terms of cabinetmaker , without it claims ...

Very subjective , unscientific story about the OP ... What then? ? ... Where ? ? ? ... Who ? ? ? ...

 Somewhere around 1880 , in some of the tsarist empire , when fashion went on collecting antiquities , suddenly began to emerge some strange artifacts of antiquity, such unusual portraits dosochki ... And all of them the same hour, went to a known private collection, say it was the best for the preservation of things ... Then they successfully moved to correct the Metropolitan Museum ...

Business went well and showed up a Viennese antiquarian of which went to our wonderful things ( about 1885 ) ... Once it went successfully , it was worth it urgently okuchit and correct arts institutions correctly : in St. Petersburg and Paris and London ...

But in people and institutions have already experienced then ask: Where do you suddenly scored as many artifacts ? ? ? ... Clearly, says brought Ragman , this morning ... They spoke honestly of the right things Egypt brought ...

But what will fit for the private meeting in Moscow , is not exactly the right suit , metropolitan institutions ... They say , Let me see , my friend provenance us ... Will you provenansik ... Kindly ... Renowned Egyptologist vpryagsya for that antiquarian : says steep artifacts those little things ... They do little shells ... then our antiquarian famous specialist , a major expert in any antiquities in Egypt the same ...

Major success : the traveler arrived at some Egyptian Fayum oasis and saw firsthand how the Bedouin shepherds built a fire to keep warm ... It is clear that they were burning pyre of the last 50 ... OP aesthetes ... Lay those portraits on mummies (the official version OP attached to the place of "person" on the sarcophagus ) , in the ground, almost 2000 years and then, just for the arrival of the expert, all mummies unearthed , stripped them OP and made ​​a fire of them ... Expeditions else there could not really find anything ... But 50 magnificent OP they saw in the fire for sure ... just after this performance , OP and called " Fayum portrait " ...

It is clear that from this provenance could not disown any Hermitage or the Louvre or London to New York ... I can tell you Steep provenance , now you will not find this ... Iron and concrete ... However, later also one specialist spud those institutions successfully ... vtyuhivali them some gold figurines ... When asked where little things ? ? ? ... he says some in the garden Little Russian grandmother digs out ... they looked at the other grandmother and garden and say horseradish in you provenance ... the Louvre, then in 1906 (?) buying artifacts for some reason recognized those little things .... and fuflovymi grandmother and garden there is, and the little things ... fuflovye strange logic ... not that here neither Bedouin nor artifacts , all burned ... And you say : the provenance is not important ...

In fact, with a minimum of distinct information , try to analyze what we see through the eyes and ears do not ...

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First , it is striking to what made ​​this product ... Most of the artifacts of Fine Arts had been performed on the boards or canvas, paper or cardboard ... ... Why is there such thin , unusual board ? ? .. .

It is clear that to make a record of 1.5 or 2 mm thick is not so easy ... They say most of the planks of basswood ( very appropriate name of the tree ) ... According to some sources and thickness dosochek all close ...

Always pedaliruetsya answer about good , dry climate of Egypt , where such a magical way to keep all artifacts arts , including our favorite OP ... seen many times asked the uncomfortable question ... It is clear that thin dosochki very well in that climate This ... we planks icons, canned many times , bent as they wish , through some hundred years ... And they do not ... Dry -s ...

  Sense , it is clear there was nothing in the 1st century to suffer by making artisanal tonyusenkie , wooden board ... If you want to try to make it yourself at home, preferably without iron tools ... We are in the 1st century , together with our OP ...

Unsubstantiated guess that those dosochki gladenkie and similar thickness were ordinary veneer ... Veneer done 3 ways ... sawing , planing and peeling ... You can still log splitting wedges , as is done in Siberia hunting skiing, but not talk about it ...

I am most interested of all: veneer peeling ... This is when the log is inserted into the lathe , it slowly turns and cutter removes a thin shavings ... When that " chips " glued overlaid across, get plywood ... What seemed a good way to Shelling : minimum price and, more importantly , in this veneer will not " annual rings " ... We need annual rings ? ? ? ... No, of course ... Suddenly , museum workers look at and compare the transverse spil with samples of known ... Specialist today quickly tell what veneer made ​​of OP ... But who will show him their ...

 Machines for the production of veneer in Europe invented relatively recently ... Of course, in the Fayum oasis known them for many millennia before, and therefore able to create a beautiful ... OP machine to create the veneer peeling method was invented in g.Revele (Tallinn , Ross.Imperiya ) in 1819godu ... Germans towards the end of the century caught up ... Oh no mere veneer this thing ...

If you move away from the veneer , the painting is very similar to the OP Greeks and Montenegrins portraits executed in the manner of artisans ... But seen : and of chiaroscuro and about the " classics " are the masters heard something ...

However , we must admit , this story is much darker than it seems ... There is no Bastrikin not help us ...