> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://theegyptfiles.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Egypt's Tondo of the Two Brothers Restored Before Its First Trip Abroad - URL: https://theegyptfiles.com/tondo-of-the-two-brothers-restored-rome-ara-pacis/ - Published: 2026-10-15T06:52:16.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-15T08:48:01.000Z - Description: Egypt's tourism minister announced on 11 October that the Fayum tondo has been restored. It is due to leave Egypt for the first time, for Rome's Ara Pacis Museum. - Author: J E Cowie - Tags: News Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Sherif Fathy, announced on 11 October 2026 that restoration work on the Tondo of the Two Brothers is complete. SEE News reported that the announcement came at an international press conference at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. The painted panel is one of the best-known portraits from Roman-era Egypt, and it is now due to leave the country for the first time. ## What the panel is SEE News describes the Tondo of the Two Brothers as a circular wooden panel about 62 cm across and no more than a centimetre thick. It is painted in encaustic, a technique that mixes pigments with melted beeswax, and shows two young men side by side. SEE News says the round shape, large size and double-portrait composition make it an exceptional example among known Fayum portraits. QNA gives the same measurements and notes the unusual placement of two people in one space. The exhibition's organiser, MondoMostre, calls it "the undisputed masterpiece of ancient painting". Fayum portraits, according to SEE News, were mostly painted on thin wooden panels and placed over mummies' faces within their wrappings, reflecting the meeting of Egyptian funerary tradition with Greek and Roman artistic influences. MondoMostre's exhibition page says fewer than a thousand survive worldwide and that they are rarely loaned. ## The restoration ![The Tondo of the Two Brothers, a round painted wooden panel of two young men side by side](https://theegyptfiles.com/content/images/2026/10/shot2_the-tondo-of-the-two-brothers-a-round-pa-2.jpg) The Tondo of the Two Brothers, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, in an earlier photograph taken before the 2026 restoration. Ali Abdel Halim, Director General of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, set out the work at the press conference, as SEE News reports. The three-week conservation programme was carried out by specialists from Fabrica Conservazione e Restauro in Rome, working with the museum's own restoration team. MondoMostre says the restoration was done at the initiative of the exhibition organisers. Abdel Halim said the panel was in poor condition because of an old wood-boring insect infestation and fragile paint layers. He also said that earlier restoration attempts had left parts near the mouth and chin of the figure on the right wrongly reattached. According to SEE News, the conservators: - consolidated the paint layer around missing areas; - stabilised fragile zones; - treated insect tunnels beneath the paint surface; - levelled and reinforced the misplaced fragments, then returned them to their original positions on precision supports. Hisham El-Leithy, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the work needed extremely delicate intervention because both the wooden support and the paint layer were fragile. He said it followed a minimal-intervention approach to keep the piece authentic, restoring its visual cohesion while preserving historical evidence of its condition over time. SEE News also reports a finding about the original painting: examination under ultraviolet light revealed traces on the figures' hair suggesting that the ancient artist applied a transparent layer of varnish to deepen the dark tones; The History Blog attributes the finding to ultrasound scans. SEE News presents this as new insight into painting techniques in Roman Egypt. ## Heading to Rome ![The Ara Pacis Museum building in Rome](https://theegyptfiles.com/content/images/2026/10/shot3_the-ara-pacis-museum-building-in-rome-3.jpg) The Ara Pacis Museum, Rome. The panel is due to be shown at the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome, in the exhibition *The Power of the Portrait. Egypt and Rome. Faces of Fayum*, which runs from 5 November 2026 to 2 May 2027\. QNA, citing a Ministry statement, says the panel is set to leave Egypt for the first time in its history. MondoMostre says Egypt is lending almost all of its Fayum paintings for the show, and that they have never before left Egyptian museums. SEE News lists the Egyptian lenders as the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, the Kom Aushim Museum and the Hurghada Museum. MondoMostre describes the show as more than 110 works, including wooden panels, shrouds and funerary masks, marble sculptures, plaster casts and ancient jewellery. Alongside the Egyptian loans, the organiser lists: - twenty-three works from the Louvre, including panels and painted shrouds, among them works from Antinoe; - the portrait of Isidora, now at the Getty Museum; - Eirene, from the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart; - portraits from the Metropolitan Museum; - a previously unseen youthful face that has just emerged from the excavations of an Italian archaeological mission in Egypt. The curators are Claudio Parisi Presicce and Laura Petacco. SEE News says Parisi Presicce told the press conference the exhibition places Fayum portraits in their wider cultural setting, showing the interaction between Egyptian funerary customs, Greek artistic traditions and Roman portraiture styles. At the press conference the minister framed the restoration as an example of international cooperation between Egyptian and Italian specialists. SEE News reports that Italy's ambassador to Cairo, Agostino Palese, called it a cornerstone of joint cooperation. Our own view: an earlier repair that put fragments back in the wrong place, and traces in the hair suggesting an ancient varnish layer, are good reasons to treat a "finished" restoration as one more chapter in the panel's history. The Rome show is scheduled to be the panel's first appearance outside Egypt. ## Sources Abu Dashish, A. (2026) 'Restoration of the "Two Brothers" Panel Completed Ahead of its Debut Display in Italy', SEE News — Sada Elbalad English, 11 October 2026, available at: [https://see.news/restoration-of-the-two-brothers-panel-completed-ahead-of-its-debut-display-in-italy](https://see.news/restoration-of-the-two-brothers-panel-completed-ahead-of-its-debut-display-in-italy?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 15 October 2026). MondoMostre – Civita Mostre e Musei (n.d.) 'The Power of the Portrait. Egypt and Rome. Faces of Fayum', MondoMostre, available at: [https://www.mondomostre.it/il-potere-del-ritratto-egitto-e-roma-i-volti-del-fayum.html?setlang=en](https://www.mondomostre.it/il-potere-del-ritratto-egitto-e-roma-i-volti-del-fayum.html?setlang=en&ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 15 October 2026). Qatar News Agency (2026) 'Restoration of Egyptian Painting Completed Ahead of Showcasing in Italy', QNA, 11 October 2026, available at: [https://qna.org.qa/en/news/news-details?id=restoration-of-egyptian-painting-completed-ahead-of-showcasing-in-italy&date=11/10/2026](https://qna.org.qa/en/news/news-details?id=restoration-of-egyptian-painting-completed-ahead-of-showcasing-in-italy&date=11/10/2026&ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 15 October 2026). Shafiq, A. (2026) 'Egypt restores ancient Fayum portrait ahead of first overseas exhibition', The Star (Xinhua), 12 October 2026, available at: [https://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2026/10/12/egypt-restores-ancient-fayum-portrait-ahead-of-first-overseas-exhibition](https://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2026/10/12/egypt-restores-ancient-fayum-portrait-ahead-of-first-overseas-exhibition?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 15 October 2026). The History Blog (2026) 'Fayum portrait Tondo of the Two Brothers restored', The History Blog, 12 October 2026, available at: [http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/77125](http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/77125?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 15 October 2026). ## Picture credits - Top picture: The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, Cairo. Photo: w\_lemay ([source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/59081381@N03/46992935415?ref=theegyptfiles.com)) - The Tondo of the Two Brothers, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, in an earlier photograph taken before the 2026 restoration. Photo: anonymous, Public domain ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fayum--52.jpg?ref=theegyptfiles.com)) - The Ara Pacis Museum, Rome. Image: allisonmeier, [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=theegyptfiles.com), via Flickr ([source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/7527891@N04/3528168059?ref=theegyptfiles.com))