Woodcarved Relief with the Baptism and the Ascension of Christ
From AudreyWiki
| Artist: | Anonymous (Byzantine) |
| Created: | 14th century |
| Medium: | carved boxwood |
| Dimensions: | 9 1/2 x 3 7/8 in. (24 x 7.5 cm) |
| Credit Line: | Acquired by Henry Walters, 1929 |
| Accession No.: | 61.115 |
| Description: | Baptism and Ascension of Christ |
| Culture: | Byzantine |
| Period: | Medieval |
| Country: | Greece |
| Style: | Palaеologan |
Contents |
The Walters Fragment
Images
The Ascension of Christ is depicted below, with the Baptism above it. In the latter scene, the two figures at Jesus's feet are personifications of the Sea (left) and the River Jordan (right) - a reference to Psalm 113/114:3, "The sea saw it and fled; Jordan was driven back".[1]
On the adjoining small column, the three upper frames contain busts of Prophet Elisha, Saint John Chrysostom and Prophet Michah, while the three lower ones have images of Prophet Haggai, Saint Theodore the General (Stratelates), and Prophet Joel.
Inscriptions
Τὸν δεσπότην βάπτισον, ὦ Ζαχαρίου,
καὶ μὴ παραιτοῦ· παγγενοῦς πλήσει ῥύπου.
Baptize Our Lord, O son of Zachariah,
And do not beg off:[2] He will fill with everyone's filth.[3]
τὸν ἥλιον βλέπουσι[4] Χ(ριστὸ)ν ὀξέως.
Like true eagles seeing the sun in all its brightness,
The apostles watch the rising of Our Savior.
On the scroll held by the prophet Elisha: Τάδε λ(έ)γ(ει ὁ) Κ(ύριος), ‘This says the Lord’[5]
On the scroll held by the prophet Haggai: Καὶ ἐπέβ(η ἐπὶ Χερουβὶμ καὶ ἐπετάσθη) (Psalm 17/18:10), ‘And He mounted on cherubim, and flew’.
On the scroll held by the prophet Micah: Ἔσται ἐπ᾿ ἐσχ(άτων τῶν ἡμέρων ἐμφανὲς τὸ ὄρος Κυρίου) (Micah 4:1 in the Septuagint), ‘At the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest’.
On the scroll held by the prophet Joel: Ἐκχέω ἀπὸ τ(οῦ πνεύματός μου ἐπὶ πᾶσαν σάρκα) (Joel 2:28), ‘I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh’.
Provenance
Léon Gruel, Paris, by purchase; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1929, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
The Hermitage Fragment
The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, owns a woodcarved relief (inv. ω 265) that completely matches the Walters one in size (24 x 7.5 cm) and design. Clearly, the two pieces are fragments from a single object. The Peterburg one was purchased in 1886 by the art historian N. P. Kondakov and is reported to have come from the Rhodopi Mountains, which lie in southern Bulgaria and northern Greece. In 1915, the piece was exhibited at the museum of the Baron Stigelitz School of Art and Design in Saint Petersburg. It entered the Hermitage in 1925.
Images
The Raising of Lazarus is shown above, with the Dormition (Death) of the Virgin below. On the adjoining small column, the three upper frames contain busts of Prophet Jonah, Saint Nicholas and King David, while the three lower ones have images of Saint Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzenus), Saint Elizabeth and an unknown prophet (the inscription with his name has been lost through damage).
Inscriptions
Ἐκ γῆς ὁ νεκρὸς αὖθις εἰς φῶς ἀνέδυ
τοῦ δημιουργήσαντος ἀκούσας μόνου.
From the earth the dead man rises in an instant
Having heard the voice of his Divine Creator.
Ὑπὲρ λόγον τεκοῦσα παρθένος μένεις,[6]
θανοῦσα δὲ ζῆς· ταῦτα {υ} γὰρ ἄμφω ξέν(α).
You remain a virgin even after childbirth
And you live in death: both of these are wonders.
On the scroll held by the prophet Jonah: Καὶ ἀναβή(τω φθορὰ τῆς ζωῆς μου Κύριε ὁ Θεός μου) (Jonah 2:7), ‘Let my ruined life be restored, O Lord my God’.
On the scroll held by King David: Ἄκ(ου)σον θ(ύγατερ καὶ ἴδε καὶ κλῖνον τὸ οὖς σου) (Psalm 44/45:10), ‘Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear’.
On the scroll held by St Gregory of Nazianzus: ἡγίασε τὸ (σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ ὁ ὕψιστος) (Psalm 45/46:4), ‘the Most High has sanctified his tabernacle’.
On the scroll held by the anonymous prophet: Ἐκ στόμ(ατος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον) (Psalm 8:2), ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfect praise’.
Iconography, Shape, and Function of the Object
Both the Walters and the Hermitage plaques are now broken on their left-hand sides. Originally, each must have been framed by two symmetrical small columns. On the surviving columns, the bust figures on the inner sides hold scrolls whose text in each case refers to the adjacent New Testament scene: "And He mounted on cherubim, and flew" alludes to the Ascension, "Yet, O Lord my God, let my ruined life be restored", to the Raising of Lazarus, "the Most High has sanctified his tabernacle", to the Dormition of the Virgin (who is the new Tabernacle of the Lord). This permits surmizing what the now lost scenes on the other sides of the columns were: the missing panel to the right of the Walters one had images of the Transfiguration ("At the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest") and Pentecost ("I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh"), while on the right of the Hermitage panel would have been the Annunciation ("Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear") and Entry into Jerusalem ("Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfect praise"). The exact same combination of scenes is found on a Byzantine painted hexaptych from the 14th century preserved at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, Egypt.[7] It consists of narrow plaques that are very similar in size and composition to the Walters and Hermitage ones. The set from which the latter two came would have contained, by analogy with the Sinai polyptych, tweve scenes grouped in two rows:
- the Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Baptism, Transfiguration, and Raising of Lazarus;
- the Entry into Jerusalem, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and Dormition of the Virgin.
The hexaptych to which the Walters and Hermitage plaques belonged was evidently not meant to be displayed flat, since the Hermitage panel, originally the last one in the series, had immediately on its right the now lost first panel with the Annunciation and Entry into Jerusalem. Moreover, the frontal sections of the surviving columns (with SS John Chrysostom and Theodore the General on one column, SS Nicholas and Elizabeth on the other) are turned aside at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. These columns, therefore, must once have occupied the corners of a hexagonal object. Their back sides retain narrow grooves into which the adjacent walls of this object were fitted (there are also traces of the small nails that held the walls together). The object as a whole would have measured about 14 cm (5 1/2") across. Judging from the manner in which its lower edge and the back side of its top part are cut, it had a flat bottom and a dome-shaped lid. Its original use is uncertain, but it is likely to have been a tabernacle (artophorion), i.e. container for storing the Eucharist.[8]
A somewhat comparable object of square shape survives, with all its four walls preserved, in the State Hermitage Museum (inv. ω 220).[9] Its measurements (18 x 9 x 8 cm) and style are very similar to those of our two plaques. It has woodcarved depictions of only four New Testament scenes: the Annunciation, Nativity, Baptism, and Resurrection of Christ. (The verses inscribed underneath the Baptism are the same as those found on the Walters plaque.) Narrow, tall and hollow as it is, this object most probably served to hold in place some kind of vertical item. There are no traces of wax on it, so it is unlikely to have been a candlestick. It has been tentatively interpreted as the base of a now lost Crucifix.[10]
Bibliography
Walters Fragment
M. C. Ross, ed. Early Christian and Byzantine Art: An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Organized by the Walters Art Gallery in Collaboration with the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University and Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University (Baltimore, 1947), 37: cat. 87.
Ν. Νικονάνος, "Βυζαντινά ξυλόγλυπτα στο Αγιον Ορος", in: Αγιον Ορος. Φύση, λατρεία, τέχνη: Πρακτικά Συνεδρίων εις το πλαίσιον των παραλλήλων εκδηλώσεων της Εκθέσεως «Θησαυροί του Αγίου Ορους» (Θεσσαλονίκη, 2001), 149-153, 241-243.
A. Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst (Wien, 2010) [=W. Hörandner, A. Rhoby, A. Paul, eds. Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Überlieferung, Bd. 2], 354.
Hermitage Fragment
Н. П. Кондаков, Памятники христианского искусства на Афоне (Санкт-Петербург, 1902), 202-203, табл. xlvii.
G. A. Sotiriou, "La sculpture sur bois dans l'art byzantin", in: Mélanges Charles Diehl, 2 vols. (Paris, 1930), II, 172-180, esp. 173.
A. V. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of the USSR (Leningrad and Moscow, 1966), 378, fig. 271.
А. В. Банк, М. А. Бессонова, Искусство Византии в собраниях СССР: Каталог выставки, 3 vols. (Москва, 1977), III, 157: кат. 1008.
В. Н. Залесская, "Реконструкция византийского деревянного эпистилия XIV века", Эрмитажные чтения памяти Б. Б. Пиотровского 3 (1995), 19-21.
Yuri Piatnitsky et al., eds., Sinai, Byzantium, Russia: Orthodox Art from the Sixth to the Twentieth Century, exh. cat., Courtauld Gallery (London, 2000), 142: cat. B119 (V. N. Zalesskaya); cf. the reviews by Ch. G. Chotzakoglou, Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 53 (2003), 346-349, esp. 347 and by А. Ю. Виноградов, Византийский временник 68 (2009), 243-249, esp. 244.
В. Р. Залесская (sic), "«Створка складня» из собрания Н. П. Кондакова", in: И. Д. Соловьева, ред. Никодим Павлович Кондаков 1844-1925: личность, научное наследние, архив. К 150-летию со дня рождения (Санкт-Петербург, 2001), 72-74.
Ν. Νικονάνος, "Βυζαντινά ξυλόγλυπτα στο Αγιον Ορος", In: Αγιον Ορος. Φύση, λατρεία, τέχνη: Πρακτικά Συνεδρίων εις το πλαίσιον των παραλλήλων εκδηλώσεων της Εκθέσεως «Θησαυροί του Αγίου Ορους» (Θεσσαλονίκη, 2001), 149-153, 241-243.
A. Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst (Wien, 2010) [=W. Hörandner, A. Rhoby, A. Paul, eds. Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Überlieferung, Bd. 2], 353.
References
- ↑ K. Keiko, "The Personifications of the Jordan and the Sea: Their Function in the Baptism in Byzantine Art", in: Αφιέρωμα στη μνήμη του Σωτήρη Κίσσα (Thessaloniki, 2001), 161-212.
- ↑ Cf. Matthew 3:14.
- ↑ I.e. He will take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
- ↑ The point is that those chicks who are an eagle's true children (rather than bastards, νόθοι) are able to look straight at the sun without being blinded by it. There is a similar comparison (ultimately based on Aristotle, History of Animals, IX.34/620a.1-2) in the Life of St Lazarus of Mt Galesium (BHG 980) written by Gregory of Cyprus (1241-1289): τὸ γινώσκειν τὰ μὴ τοῖς πολλοῖς γινωσκόμενα, ἅτε πρὸς φῶς ἰθυτενῶς ἀντωποῦσιν ἡλίου τοῦ νοητοῦ, ὥσπερ τῶν ἀετιδῶν ὅσοι μὴ νόθοι πρὸς τὸν ὁρώμενον ἥλιον τουτονί, ed. H. Delehaye, Acta Sanctorum, Tomus III Novembris (Brussels, 1910), 603D. The poet Manuel Philes (c. 1275-1345) writes in praise of John Cantacuzenus: Ἐξ ἀετιδῶν τὸ χρυσοῦν ἕλκων γένος / Εἶναι κολοιὸς οὐδαμῶς ὅδ’ ἂν θέλοι· / Καὶ γὰρ ἔχει βάσανον ἀψευδεστάτην / Τὸ καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν τοῦ κράτους τὸν φωσφόρον / Ἀσκαρδαμυκτὶ καὶ παραχρῆμα βλέπειν, / Καὶ μηδὲν ἐξ αἵματος ἀλλοῖον φέρειν / Ἢ νωθὲς ἢ κάπηλον ἢ πεφυρμένον, ed. E. Miller, Manuelis Philae carmina, Vol. I (Paris, 1855), 170; transl. P. Magdalino, Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Byzantium (Aldershot, 1991), I.67.
- ↑ This phrase is the usual opening for lections (readings) from the Old Testament in the Greek Orthodox Church: http://aedilis.irht.cnrs.fr/liturgie/05_1.htm#titreDyn44.
- ↑ Cf. the theotokion (short hymn in praise of the Virgin) included in the kanon (long hymn) for the feast of St Andrew the Martyr, October 17: Σαρκὸς ἐν ὁμοιώματι γεγονότα, Πατρὸς τὸν ὁμοούσιον Θεὸν Λόγον, ἐκύησας Πανάμωμε ὑπὲρ λόγον, Παρθένος μείνασα μετὰ τὴν κύησιν, etc. (http://www.analogion.gr/glt/texts/Oct/17.uni.htm)
- ↑ H. Evans, ed. Byzantium: Faith and Power, 1261-1557, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 2004), 370-372: cat. 227.
- ↑ Cf. Athens, Byzantine and Christian Museum, Inv. ΚΠρ 54/T 630: E. Chalkia, ed. Post-Byzantium, The Greek Renaissance: 15th-18th-Century Treasures from the Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens, exh. cat., Onaissis Cultural Center, New York (Athens, 2002), 160-161: cat. 33.
- ↑ A. V. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of the USSR (Leningrad and Moscow, 1966), Fig. 270.
- ↑ Ibid., 377-378.
