Note 80: — XXII.—EDUCATION, WITH WRITING AND PAINTING. (Table-Case J.)

The methods of painting illustrated here are two, viz., painting on a dry ground in water-colours, and what is known as "encaustic" painting. For the first, water-colours were used, and the ground material was generally a thin piece of wood, whitened to receive the colours. Egypt has furnished many examples of this kind of painting. Among them is the portrait of a woman from the Fayum, wearing a fillet (No. 616). This no doubt comes from a mummy of the Roman period, such as the one exhibited in Case 72 next the entrance to the Gold Room Corridor, which has a similar painted portrait (in encaustic, however) placed over the face. Other water-colour paintings of Roman date from Egypt are shown in Case J, such as the figures of Fortune and Venus painted in several colours on a red ground (No. 617), and the fragmentary figure (No. 618), wearing a jewel of gold and pearls, and inscribed with the name of Sarapis (ϹΑΡΑΠΙ). The encaustic process was that employed in the case of the framed portrait (No. 619), found at Hawara in Egypt. The frame is carefully made, the sides being joined by tenons and mortises. There is a groove for a glass covering, and the cord by which it was suspended still remains. The portrait was painted in wax, by a process which can hardly have been other than that called "encaustic" by Pliny.80 The nature of this process has been much disputed, but probably the colours were ground in with the wax, which was fused by the heat of the sun or artificial means, and then laid on by the brush. A stump (cestrum) was also sometimes employed. Probably a box divided into compartments was used for holding these wax-colours in their fluid state. Such a receptacle may perhaps be recognised in the long terracotta vessel, which has a groove in the middle for a brush (No. 620).