Materials Lab Workshop: Making Faces

This workshop accompanies the exhibition Funerary Portraits from Roman Egypt: Facing Forward, which invites viewers to ask more about the complicated histories of these portraits and the people they depict. It also explores what can be learned about the artistic processes and current condition of these works through scientific analysis and technical research conducted by staff in the Harvard Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. Funerary Portraits is on view at the Harvard Art Museums through December 30, 2022. We encourage participants to visit the exhibition at some point before the workshop date. Please be advised that this exhibition contains objects that were removed from ancient Egyptian burials.

Join visiting artist Francisco Benitez for a short overview of the long history of encaustic (pigmented wax) painting and demonstration of the technique before making your own copy of a funerary portrait of a woman from the Harvard Art Museums collections. Curator Susanne Ebbinghaus, one of the Funerary Portraits team members, will provide background on the portraits from Roman Egypt. Creating our own version of the ancient image is a means to better appreciating the process and the painter’s skill. The workshop also aims to honor and remember the ancient subject of the portrait we will copy, and to celebrate the relationship between artist and sitter that allowed her essence to be captured so powerfully.