id: 143165 accession number: 1967.144 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.144 updated: 2023-05-05 11:01:40.661000 Icon of the Virgin and Child, 500s. Egypt, Byzantine period, 6th century. Slit-and dovetailed-tapestry weave; wool ; overall: 178.7 x 110.5 cm (70 3/8 x 43 1/2 in.); mounted: 197.4 x 128.2 x 6.4 cm (77 11/16 x 50 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1967.144 title: Icon of the Virgin and Child title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 500s creation date earliest: 500 creation date latest: 599 current location: creditline: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund copyright: --- culture: Egypt, Byzantine period, 6th century technique: slit-and dovetailed-tapestry weave; wool department: Textiles collection: T - Coptic type: Textile find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 178.7 x 110.5 cm (70 3/8 x 43 1/2 in.); Mounted: 197.4 x 128.2 x 6.4 cm (77 11/16 x 50 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: on the lintel of the architectural setting, the Greek inscription translates as: The Holy Michael, The Holy Mary, The Holy Gabriel. The wide foliate border is decorated with fruits and flowers and, in the lower part, with medallions containing the busts of apostles whose names are inscribed nearby in Greek and are translated as: Andrew, Matthew, Paul the Apostle, Luke, James, Phillip, Mark, Thomas, John, Matthias, Peter, and Bartholomew. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1968 opening date: 1969-01-29T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969). title: Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2007-05-10T00:00:00 Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. National Museum of Bavaria, Munich, Germany (May 10-September 16, 2007); J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (October 30, 2007-January 20, 2008). title: Woven Interiors: Early Medieval Textiles of the Eastern Mediterranean opening date: 2019-08-31T04:00:00 Woven Interiors: Early Medieval Textiles of the Eastern Mediterranean. The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, Washington, DC (organizer) (August 31, 2019-January 5, 2020). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * The Age of Spirituality. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (November 19, 1977- February, 12, 1978).
Gallery 210 textile rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 6, 2000-July 12, 2000); (September 5, 2000-February 12, 2001); (August 8, 2001-February 4, 2002); (August 5, 2002-February 3, 2003); (August 4, 2003-February 3, 2004); (August 5, 2004-July 18, 2005).
Gallery 106 textile rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 31-September 13, 2010); (April 1-September 14, 2011); (March 26, 2012-March 18, 2013); (September 23, 2013-March 17, 2014); (September 22, 2014-March 2, 2015); (September 8, 2015-May 1, 2016); (October 30, 2017-April 30, 2018); (October 29, 2018-April 29, 2019). --- PROVENANCE (Mrs. Paul Mallon, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art). date: ?-1967 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1967- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Created in Egypt's hot and dry desert climate, this tapestry features a border of lush greenery and fruits, while flowers peek out from around the throne of the Virgin. Imagine encountering this artistic oasis in a Coptic church during the dry heat of the day. digital description: wall description: This tapestry glorifying the Virgin Mary is among the rarest objects in the museum’s collection. In a composition borrowed from imperial Byzantine art, Mary is shown seated on a jeweled throne with the Christ child and flanked by archangels Michael and Gabriel. Above, Christ appears in a radiant light supported by two angels. Portraits of the apostles, identified in Greek, appear in the surrounding wreath symbolizing eternal life. This portable sacred textile was presumably displayed at the front of a public or private place of worship. This unique tapestry is one of the earliest Christian icons to survive. Woven icons were among the miraculous works shown to pilgrims in Jerusalem according to Abbot Adomnan of Iona (about 624–704) who described a linen cloth "said to have been woven by Saint Mary, and is for this reason preserved in a church and venerated by the whole population. Pictures of the twelve apostles are woven into it, and there is also a portrait of the Lord." The abbot’s description of the woven icon suggests it must have been similar to the tapestry displayed here. The delicate effects of shading in the facial features, garments, and vegetation were achieved by weaving the panel sideways with at least 20 colors, just as medieval tapestry weavers did centuries later in Europe. The high cost of dyes caused this majestic icon to be far costlier than painted images. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Schiller, Gertrud. Ikonographie der Christlichen Kunst. [Gütersloh]: Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1966. page number: Mentioned: Vol. 4, Pt. 2, P. 21, abb. 413: Reproduced: Vol. 4, Pt. 2, P. 267, abb. 413 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 37 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n59 Shepherd, Dorothy G. "An Icon of the Virgin." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 1 (1969) page number: p. 2, cover url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152249 Shepherd, D. (1969). An Icon of the Virgin: A Sixth-Century Tapestry Panel from Egypt. The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 56(3) page number: pp. 90-120, covers url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152263 Frazer, Margaret English. "The Djumati Enamels: A Twelfth-Century Litany of Saints." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 28, no. 6 (1970). page number: fig. 4 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3258501 Rademacher, Franz. Die Regina Angelorum in der Kunst des frühen Mittelalters. Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1972. page number: p. 29, nr. 15 url: Shepherd, Dorothy G. "A Late Classical Tapestry." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 10 (1976). page number: p. 311, fig. 10 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152664 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Anna G. Bennett. Acts of the Tapestry Symposium, November, 1976. [San Francisco]: The Museums, 1979. page number: p. 7, fig. 7 url: Weitzmann, Kurt, and Margaret English Frazer. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art Third to Seventh Century ; Based on the Catalogue to the Exhibition "Age of Spirituality", Metropolitan Museum New York, 1977. [New York, NY]: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977. page number: p. 532-33, no. 477 url: https://books.google.com/books?id=efLuB7QPDm8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Weitzmann, Kurt. "The Late Roman World." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 35, no. 2 (1977). page number: p. 80 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3259887 Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Margaret English Frazer, and Kurt Weitzmann. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art Third to Seventh Century. New York: The Museum, 1977. page number: p. 80, no. 69 url: Sampaolesi, Piero, "Zibaldone delle Arti, Mostri: 'Age of Spirituality,' New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Antichita Viva, XVI, 5 (1977). page number: p. 64 url: Weitzmann, Kurt. "Late Antique and Early Christian Art." Archaeology 30, no. 6 (1977) page number: p. 417 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41726769 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 36 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n56 Weitzmann, Kurt. The Icon: Holy Images--Sixth to Fourteenth Century. New York: G. Braziller, 1978. page number: pl. 4 url: Ball, Victoria Kloss. Architecture and Interior Design. New York: Wiley, 1980. page number: pl. 9 url: Schiller, Gertrud, and Rupert Schreiner. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst. Gütersloh: G. Mohn, 1980. page number: p. 21, fig. 413 url: Kajitani, Nobuko, "Koputo gire" (English title: "Coptic fabrics"), Semshoku no bi, no. 13 (Kyoto, 1981). page number: p. 34, pl. 44 url: Galavaris, George. The Icon in the Life of the Church: Doctrine, Liturgy, Devotion. Leiden: Brill, 1981. page number: Mentioned: P. 13, 26; Reproduced: pl. VIIb url: McGinn, Bernard, John Meyendorff, and Jean Leclercq. Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century. New York: Crossroad, 2000. page number: Fig. 31, p. 437 url: Thomas, Michel, Christine Mainguy, and Sophie Pommier. Textile Art. Geneva, Switzerland: Skira, 1985. page number: p. 35 url: Friedman, Florence D. Beyond the Pharaohs: Egypt and the Copts in the 2nd to 7th Centuries A.D. Providence, R.I.: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1989. page number: p. 69, fig. 2 url: Woolley, Linda, "Pagan Classical Christian: Egyptian Hangings of the 4th to 7th Centuries," Hali, No. 48 (Dec. 1989), page number: pp. 27-37 url: Pelikan, Jaroslav. Imago Dei. 1990. page number: p. 18, fig. 8, cover url: Rutschowscaya, Marie-Hélène. Coptic Fabrics. Paris, France: Adam Biro, 1990. page number: p. 135 url: Reader's Digest, "The Bible Through the Ages," Reader's Digest (Pleasantville, NY, 199?). page number: p. 237 url: Cleveland Museum of Art. Masterpieces from East and West. New York, NY: Rizzoli International, 1992. page number: p. 23 url: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), and Adolph S. Cavallo. Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. page number: p. 62, fig. 77 url: Lucidi, Maria Teresa. La seta e la sua via. Roma: Edizioni De Luca, 1994. page number: p. 125, fig. 1 url: Joubert, Fabienne, Amaury Lefébure, and Pascal-François Bertrand. Histoire de la tapisserie: en Europe, du Moyen Age à nos jours. Paris: Flammarion, 1995. page number: p. 28 url: Pelikan, Jaroslav. Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. page number: p. 98 url: Winner, Matthias, Victoria von Flemming, Sebastian Schütze, and Hans Werner Henze. Ars naturam adiuvans: Festschrift für Matthias Winner zum 11. Marz 1996. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 1996. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 79-80, abb. 5 url: Vasilakē, Maria. Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art. Milano: Skira, 2000. page number: p. 224, fig. 170 url: Orsini, Jacqueline. Mary: Images of the Holy Mother. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000. page number: pp. 80-81, no. 60 url: Lee, A. D. Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2000. page number: p. 259, fig. 14.12.a url: May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. page number: p. 116 url: Rosenwein, Barbara H. A Short History of the Middle Ages. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2002. page number: pp. 7, 102 url: Bolman, Elizabeth S., and Patrick Godeau. Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea. New Haven, CT: American Research Center in Egypt/Yale University Press, 2002. page number: p. 33, fig. 3.5 url: Rosenwein, Barbara H. A Short History of the Middle Ages. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2004. page number: p. 53, pl. 1.10 url: Mathews, Thomas F. and Norman Muller. Isis and Mary in Early Icons." In Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium. Maria Vasilakē, 1-9. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. page number: Mention: p. 8, note # 24 url: Jensen, Robin Margaret. Face to Face: Portraits of the Divine in Early Christianity. 2005. page number: p. 195, fig. 102 url: Queen, Sally, and Vicki L. Berger. Clothing and Textile Collections in the United States: A CSA Guide. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2006. page number: p. 259 url: Eikelmann, Renate, Holger A. Klein, Stephen N. Fliegel, and Virginia Brilliant. The Cleveland Museum of Art: Meisterwerke von 300 bis 1550. München: Hirmer, 2007. page number: pp. 42-45, no. 6 url: 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space. London: Phaidon, 2007. page number: p. 397 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holger A. Klein. Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007. page number: p. 70, cat. no. 18 url: Moor, A. de, and Cäcilia Fluck. Clothing the House: Furnishing Textiles of the 1st Millennium AD from Egypt and Neighbouring Countries : Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Research Group "Textiles from the Nile Valley" Antwerp, 6-7 October 2007. Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo Publishers, 2009. page number: pp. 148-49, fig. 2 url: Pelikan, Jaroslav. Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. page number: Mentioned: P. viii-ix, 4-5; Reproduced: Cover, verso title page url: Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Baker Pub. Group, 2012. page number: p. 68 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. page number: pp. 54-55 url: Elsner, Jaś. "Iconoclasm as Discourse: From Antiquity to Byzantium." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3 (2012) page number: p. 384, no. 20 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23268277 Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 362-363 url: Thomas, Thelma K. "Material Meaning in Late Antiquity." In Designing Identity: The Power of Textiles in Late Antiquity. Thelma K. Thomas, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. page number: Reproduced: p. 29, fig. 1-1.9 url: Asutay-Effenberger, Neslihan, and Arne Effenberger. Byzanz: Weltreich der Kunst. München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 2017. page number: Mentioned: p.122 url: Bergmeier, Armin F. Visionserwartung: Visualisierung und Präsenzerfahrung des Göttlichen in der Spätantike. Wiesbaden; Reichert Verlag 2017. page number: Mentioned: p. 147, notr #658; Reproduced: Tafel 23: p. 147 url: Ramisch, Hans. Altar-Bilder im ersten christlichen Jahrtausend: der christliche Altar und seine heilsgeschichtlichen Bildsysteme. München: Scaneg, 2018. page number: Mentioned: p. 144, 152; Reproduced: p. 151, abb. 51, cat. 19 url: Ball, Jennifer. "Textiles: The Emergence of a Christian Identity in Cloth." In I The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art.Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen and Mark D. Ellison, editors. Abingdon Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. page number: Reproduced: p. 232, fig. 14.8 url: Mazzei, Barbara. "Clipeus, clipei. Istanze simboliche e intenti decorativi nelle arti della Tarda Antichita e dell'Alto Medioevo." In Arti Minori e Arti Maggiori: Relazioni e Iterazioni tra Tarda Antichità e alto Medioevo. Fabrizio Bisconti, Matteo Braconi, and Mariarita Sgarlata. Todi (PG): Tau editrice, 2019. page number: Reproduced: p. 213, fig. 9 url: Williams, Elizabeth Dospěl, Sumru Belger Krody, and Gudrun Bühl. Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt. Washington: The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, 2019. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 78-79, no. 30 url: Dospěl, Elizabeth. 2019. “Colour, Texture, Pattern” HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles. [London]: [Oguz Press], Number:202. page number: p. 56-65; illus p. 63 url: A. de Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid. Egypt As a Textile Hub: Textile Interrelationships in the 1st Millennium AD : Proceedings of the 10th Conference of the Research Group 'Textiles from the Nile Valley', Tielt, Belgium : Lannoo, 2019, 46-48 page number: Reproduced and mentioned: pp. 46-48, fig. 6 url: Sörries, Reiner. Der frühchristliche Kirchenraum: Ikonographie - Ausstattung - Liturgie. 2020. page number: Mentioned: p. 128; reproduced: Tafel 54, Abb. 80c url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.144/1967.144_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.144/1967.144_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.144/1967.144_full.tif