Coffin Portrait

A coffin portrait (Polish: Portret trumienny) was a realistic portrait of the deceased person put on coffins for the funeral and one of the elements of the castrum doloris, but removed before the burial. It became a tradition to decorate coffins of deceased nobles (szlachta) with such funerary art in the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the time of the baroque in Poland and Sarmatism. The tradition was limited to Commonwealth countries, although the term may also describe the Ancient Egyptian mummy portraits.