Caesarion's arm a bit closer

This photo perhaps shows the differences in the "skin". Cleopatra's skin is smooth, Caesarion's filled with tiny chisel marks.

Caesarion's right arm

This morning I painted Caesarion's right arm.

It is interesting to see the difference between their arms: Cleopatra's are smooth, on Caesarion's you can see the chisel marks clearly. The theory that there was plaster on top of the stone would make sense. These little holes would make the plaster stick better...

Men were usually painted with red skin, women with yellowish. As the stone in Dendera is yellow on its own, maybe the stone was already of the right color to depict Cleopatra's skin color? So no need to plaster and paint her arms?

Cleopatra and Caesarion a bit closer

Here are Cleopatra and Caesarion a bit closer.

Did you know Caesarion's real name was Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar? Caesarion was a kind of a nickname.

Philopator means "father-loving" and Philometor of course "mother-loving".

Caesarion's face

Today I painted Caesarion's face for three hours. I had one sharp(ish) reference photo, but the light came from the opposite angle than in my own reference photo. You can imagine how it felt... I had to look at the pic with a magnifying glass to see what was causing the shadows and then imagine what kind of a shadow this "obstacle" would cast to the other direction. My own picture really could give only a rough idea.

And once it was more or less finished, I compared it to Cleopatra's face and noticed the shadows were way too deep in Caesarion. So back to the old easel... I admit I did try to give the boy some personality - the original carving has these tiny chisel marks all over the face, basically disfiguring it (in the sharp light that was casting strong shadows it looked like he had a severe case of acne...)

Caesarion's nose looks a bit "undefined" yet, but will become clearer once I paint the stone to the right - it will cast a shadow agaist his face.

He also has this gaping hole in the wall right under his jaw / ear. So at the moment his figure is a bit of a sorry sight, really.

Mother and Son Up Close

Made one more zoom to the faces of Cleopatra and Caesarion - even when his face isn't quite finished.


Their eyes were suprisingly dark in the reference photo I took myself - probably carved pretty deeply to begin with.

Detail of Caesarions Crown

Caesarion's crown(s) a bit closer. The photo is on the yellow side - taken in artificial light at 10 pm.

If the pharaohs really did wear such crowns they had to walk very carefully or else their "hat" would surely have fallen off... Or perhaps they just sat there and someone placed the crown on their heads. And then they just tried not to move... LOL

Caesarion's Crown

It was time to start painting Caesarion. He is wearing the crown of Egypt - or two crowns really; the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. Together they symbolized that the pharaoh ruled the two lands - Egypt. Or Kemet (black land) as the ancient Egyptians themselves called their country.

The crown of Upper Egypt is the one that looks like a bowling pin. If it was colored here, it would be white.

The crown of Lower Egypt (the Delta) is the one surrounding the white crown. And it would be red.

In the famous Narmer palette you see the pharaoh wearing the crown of Upper Egypt on one side and the crown of Lower Egypt on the other side.

Caesarion has the ram's horns attached to the crown