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This small wooden cross is carved in relief on both sides. On one side is the Crucifixion, flanked by Saints Peter and Paul, and with the Old Testament Trinity (a composition, also known as the Hospitality of Abraham, in which the Trinity is represented as Abraham's three angelic visitors [Gen. 18:1-15]) at the top, and the Virgin of the Sign at the bottom. In the center of the reverse side is the Archangel Michael, dressed as a Roman soldier. In the context of this personal object, Michael appears in the role of a guardian angel. Above him are a cherub and a seraph, to the left are Saints Nicholas and Basil, to the right Saints John Chrysostom and Gregory. At the bottom are Saints Sergius of Radonezh, Onouphrius, and Macarius.
Russian
H: 3 9/16 x W: 1 7/8 in. (9.1 x 4.8 cm)
medium: ebony
culture: Russian
dynasty: Rurikid Dynasty
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
The small scale of this painting and its protective covers facilitated its use as a portable icon. The hollow wooden cylinder attached to the body allowed the painting to be suspended from the owner's neck. The practice of wearing icons of the Virgin as pendants is documented in written sources as early as the fifteenth century. The main scene on this doubled-sided pendant commemorates the feast of Däbrä Metmaq. According to the "Miracles of Mary," this feast was instituted to celebrate an event that occurred annually in the church of Dayr al-Magtas, Egypt. For five days each spring, Mary miraculously appeared inside the cupola of the church, bathed in light and surrounded by angels. The main panel of this icon captures the visionary character of this event by enclosing the Virgin in a band of yellow light. Seraphim surround the outer border of red. The archangels Michael and Gabriel, depicted on the inside cover, evoke the heavenly hosts that accompanied the Virgin. By representing the major figures, the painter recreated the miraculous apparition in miniature for the pendant's owner. As the Festival of Däbrä Metmaq was especially important to women, and as the reverse of the pendant also bears the likenesses of two female martyr-saints, the patron of this work might have been female. The legend of the 15th-century saint Krestos Sämra describes how Christ bequeathed to her a painting, which he hung pendant-like around her neck. The delicately carved, painted covers transformed the closed pendant into a cherished object of personal devotion.
Christian Highland Ethiopian
H open: 4 3/8 x W: 10 1/8 in. (11.11 x 25.7 cm)
H closed: 4 3/8 x W: 3 5/8 in. (11.11 x 9.2 cm)
Panel H: 3 3/16 x W: 3 1/4 in. (8.09 x 8.25 cm)
medium: tempera on panel
culture: Christian Highland Ethiopian
Walters Art Museum, 1996, by purchase.
Michelangelo was among the first artists in Europe to attend a human dissection and to adopt anatomical knowledge as a necessity for depicting the human figure. These drawings by Battista Franco reflect the increased—and slightly macabre—interest in the interior workings of the human body inspired in part by Michelangelo’s example. Here, the groupings of arm bones, though rendered accurately, are placed into decorative piles. The odd assembly vacillates between scientific study and a symbolic memento mori, or reminder of death.
Italy, 16th century
pen and brown ink with incised lines
Sheet: 11.8 x 36.7 cm (4 5/8 x 14 7/16 in.); Secondary Support: 11.8 x 36.7 cm (4 5/8 x 14 7/16 in.)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Claude Cassirer
This Russian embroidered panel was likely used to embellish the end of a bathing towel. Textiles of this type are valuable for their fine embroidery of ancient folk motifs, ritual significance, exemplification of the role of textiles in their society, and in this case, connection to a prominent woman collector, Natalia de Shabelsky, without whom this textile and others like it might have been lost.
Russia, Nizhny-Novgorod province, early 19th century
plain weave silk (est.) ground with polychrome silk (est.) and metal thread chain stitch embroidery; applied silk (est.) ribbon and metal thread trims
Overall: 28 x 93 cm (11 x 36 5/8 in.)
Did you know...
Embroidering the ends of everyday towels was a common folk tradition in many cultures because it displayed the skill of the mother or daughter who stitched them.
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
America, 19th century
monotype
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph L. Wilson in memory of Anna Elizabeth Wilson
Only one half of this hollow cross survives.
Byzantine
H: 3 3/4 x W: 2 1/16 in. (9.5 x 5.3 cm)
medium: cast bronze
culture: Byzantine
dynasty: Macedonian Dynasty
Walters Art Museum, 1946, by purchase.
Each of the four gospels in this book opens on a page with brilliantly illuminated borders depicting the author of the text as well as birds—principally peacocks, symbols of the immortality of the soul—and fountains, representing the fountain of life and the salvation of the soul. This volume consists of 428 leaves with texts in Greek. Its level of sophistication suggests that it was probably written and decorated in a monastery in Constantinople.
Byzantium, Constantinople
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum; leather binding
Sheet: 28 x 23 cm (11 x 9 1/16 in.)
Did you know...
Gospel books were carried in procession through Byzantine churches.
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
During the Middle Ages, paper and parchment were expensive, and many people took advantage of less permanent forms of written communication. One side of an ivory tablet was coated with wax; then a message was incised in the wax with a stylus (which looks like a large pin) and protected by an ivory lid. The little box would be sent to the recipient, who smoothed the wax and responded.
The sliding cover depicts three ladies in the town, looking over its walls at two embracing couples seen to the left. The bottom of the box shows the same town at greater distance, a tent with two more lovers, a hawking expedition, and a hermit reading outside his rustic cell. Several writing boxes are known from the same, otherwise unidentified workshop.
French
H: 3 11/16 x W: 2 1/8 x D of tablet and lid together: 7/16 in. (9.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 cm)
medium: ivory
style: Gothic
culture: French
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
High demand for shawabtys in the Late Period, a time when as many as 400 or more shawabtys were placed in the tomb with the deceased, gave rise to a specialized container for storing them: the shawabty box. This example is inscribed for the lady of the house, Ditamenpaankh, and was probably one of a pair originally made for her. The single-masted boat on the box's lid is perhaps an allusion to the pilgrimage of the deceased to the holy city of Abydos, the cult city of Osiris, king of the dead. The shawabtys inside are crude, mass-produced examples cast in an open mold. Made of terracotta, their blue paint imitates more costly shawabtys made of faience. As for the shawabty spell, it has been removed from its traditional location on the shawabty's front and relocated onto the sides of box, where it needed only to be written once, thus expediting production.
Egypt, Late period (715–332 BCE), Dynasty 25
terracotta
Overall: 5.7 x 1.6 x 1.1 cm (2 1/4 x 5/8 x 7/16 in.)
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
This sculpture is one of a series that depict the Buddha at different scenes in his life. Here, he is at Bodhgaya, the place where he achieved enlightenment. At the top of the composition are the branches of the ficus tree with its heart-shaped leaves, under which he achieved enlightenment. His hand gesture indicates that he is calling upon the goddess of the earth to witness the moment. During the Pala period of the eighth through 12th centuries in medieval India, Buddhism dominated and flourished in major monastic universities. After the fall of the Pala dynasty, the numerous battles between small kingdoms vying for power caused the destruction of the Buddhist monasteries, and Buddhist monks fled with texts and movable art to Nepal, Tibet, and Southeast Asia, so that by the 14th century, Buddhism was eradicated in India.
Northeastern India, Bihar, Tetravan, Pala Period (750-1197)
chloritic schist
Overall: 94 cm (37 in.)
Did you know...
The donors kneel at the lower corners.
Dudley P. Allen Fund