Funerary Mask

Late Ptolemaic Period-early Roman Period, 1st century BCE

Egyptian; probably from Hawara, Egypt

A funerary mask protected the head and chest of a mummified individual. Rather than presenting a portrait, a mask like this shows the deceased with idealized facial features and the golden skin of a god. At the bottom, kites (birds of prey) with outstretched wings flank divine figures including the ruler of the underworld, Osiris, who sits on a throne in the center. The kites represent Isis and Nephthys, who mourned the death of their brother Osiris. By extension, these goddesses acted as mourners for everyone transitioning from the world of the living to the realm of the reborn dead.

Status: On View, Gallery 137
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Ancient Egyptian
Title: Funerary Mask
Place: Egypt (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 100 BCE–1 BCE
Medium: Cartonnage, gold leaf, and pigment
Dimensions: 44.5 × 30.5 × 29.8 cm (17 1/2 × 12 × 11 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: W. Moses Willner Fund
Reference Number: 1910.220
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/136740/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, Thirty-Second Annual Report (June 1, 1910–June 1, 1911), pp. 19, 62.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), pp. 16-17 (ill.)
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 26-27, fig. 11.

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1910.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.