Two-panel painting with King Lalibäla and Mäsqäl Kǝbra, Saint Mercurius, Saints Joachim and Anne

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Two-panel painting with King Lalibäla and Mäsqäl Kǝbra, Saint Mercurius, Saints Joachim and Anne

Place of OriginEthiopian Highlands, Ethiopia, Africa

Dateabout 1500

DimensionsOpen: 4 9/16 × 7 5/16 × 1/4 in. (11.6 × 18.5 × 0.6 cm)

Mediumtempera on wood panel

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2021.38

Not on View

DescriptionTwo-panel wooden icon joined together with string, featuring three painted surfaces in tempera. The exterior painted surface displays a haloed man and woman holding palm fronds. Open, a haloed man and woman, both with large earrings, occupy the left panel. The male saint, who holds a cross in his right hand, wears a white, open, sleeveless tunic with red polka dots over a patterned red long tunic. The female saint wears a red dress with a teal mantle with thick pleats draped over her head and around her body. The right panel depicts St. George holding a spear and riding a white horse. The reverse, or exterior face, of the right-hand panel is unpainted and roughly worn.

Label TextLike other Orthodox Christian cultures, Ethiopia maintained a special reverence for the likenesses of holy figures, demonstrated by the artistic vibrancy of the Ethiopian icon tradition. Saints Anne and Joachim, the Virgin Mary’s parents, appear on this icon’s exterior. Inside, a posthumous royal portrait of the revered Ethiopian King Lalibela (1162–1221) and his pious wife Masqal Kibra are on the left with Saint Mercurius on horseback on the right. The icon’s small size suggests it served as a portable icon.Exhibition HistoryBaltimore, MD, Walters Art Museum; Salem, MA, Peabody Essex Museum; Toledo, OH, Toledo Museum of Art, Ethiopia at the Crossroads, Dec. 3, 2023 - Nov. 10, 2024.Comparative ReferencesSee also Chojnacki, Stanislaw. Ethiopian Icons: Catalogue of the Collection of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies from the Addis Ababa University. Milan: Fondazione Carlo Leone Montandon. c.f .Gnisci, Jacopo. “A Fifteenth-Century Ethiopian Icon of the Virgin and Child by the Master of the Amber-Spotted Tunic.” Rassegna d Studi Etiopici 65 (2019): 183–93. See also Grierson, Roderick, ed., African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. See also Heldman, Marilyn. The Marian Icons of the Painter Fre Seyon. A Study in Fifteenth-Century Ethiopian Art, Patronage and Spirituality. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994. See also Mann, C. Griffith, et. al, Ethiopian Art: The Walters Art Museum, Lingfield, Surrey: Third Millennium Publishing, 2001.