Artwork Page for Diptych with Twelve Apostles & St. Paul

Details / Information for Diptych with Twelve Apostles & St. Paul

Diptych with Twelve Apostles & St. Paul

c. 1700

Workshop or Circle of Wäldä Maryam

(Ethiopia, active mid- to late 1600s-early 1700s)
Culture
Africa, East Africa, Ethiopia, presumably Gondär
Medium
Tempera, wood, textile
Measurements
39 x 51 cm (15 3/8 x 20 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2023.4
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

Captions written in the language Gəˁəz identify each holy man by name. This African language is nearly 2,500 years old!

Description

Depicting 13 holy men, this diptych (two-panel painting) is sized for an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian church or elite home. It is painted in the bold, colorful style associated with royal court workshops from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s. Painter Wäldä Maryam (or someone he trained) set this scene of Christ’s apostles in the context of his homeland. Each saint wears fashionable clothing imported from India. While they are posed and dressed similarly to emphasize their group identity, the artist portrayed their faces and hairstyles individually. Captions in Ge’ez––an eastern African language dating to the 400s BCE––identify each by name.
Diptych, a two-panel painting, divided into four sections, each with three men with light skin tones standing in them except the lower right corner where four men cluster. The men have gold halos, short, black or greyed hair, some beards, and wear vibrant dark-blue, red, green, and gold robes. They raise their hands in front of their chests and look at each other, their names in black written in the language Gəˁəz above their heads.

Diptych with Twelve Apostles & St. Paul

c. 1700

Workshop or Circle of Wäldä Maryam

(Ethiopia, active mid- to late 1600s-early 1700s)
Africa, East Africa, Ethiopia, presumably Gondär

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