Mummy Mask

Egypt, New Kingdom, reign of Ramesses II, ca. 1279–1213 b.c.
Painted cartonnage
2011.017.001
Gift of Joop Bollen


This rare funerary mask depicts a man wearing a traditional, divine lappet-wig, headband and a floral broad collar. The red coloring would symbolize re-birth evoking the hue of the rising sun. Made of fragile cartonnage (a mixture of plaster and papyrus or linen) very few of these masks survive intact. The only comparable masks to this are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum.