The Egyptian goddess Isis was popular throughout the Roman Empire, and she was syncretised with many different Greek and Roman goddesses, such as Aphrodite and Fortuna. Unlike the earlier Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans tended to see Isis as a saviour goddess. To them, she stood above the Fates. She also stood above death, having effectively brought her husband Osiris—Sarapis to the Greeks and Romans—back from the dead. And as the wife of the lord of the Underworld, she was thought to pull even further strings after her worshippers’ death. This icon is in honour to that Isis, who saves her devotees in both life and death. She is pictured with a symbolic crown, a horn of plenty and a sistrum, and she is wearing the Black of Isis, which readers of the Greek Magical Papyri will be familiar with.

Isis-Fortuna was painted in gouache on watercolour paper. The gold consists of dry metallic pigment bound with starch.