ABSTRACT
The portraits associated with the cemetery at er-Rubayat were mostly acquired in the 1880s by the Viennese dealer Theodor Graf, who exhibited them at several venues in Europe and America to great public acclaim, selling them to various institutions and private collectors. It has recently been confirmed that the cemetery was the burial ground for the inhabitants of Philadelphia, a large community in the north-east of the Fayum some 12 km distant from the modern settlement of er-Rubayat, from where the paintings were probably sent out of the Fayum. Many of the tempera portraits have been dated to the third and fourth centuries Ad on grounds of the apparent crudity of their style. The trapezoidal panel has slight vertical fissures, and paint is lost in several areas, especially to the right of the portrait.
