CMA-EG
Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian) · textile
Icon of the Virgin and Child
Description
[Egypt, Byzantine period] Woven from more than 20 colors of woolen thread, this rare tapestry was more expensive than a painting when it was made. The historical price reflected contemporary viewers’ appreciation for the skilled color blending by the weavers. Hung on a wall, this tapestry allowed viewers to venerate (honor) the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child in the Christian Orthodox church. Angels and apostles surround them, their names written in Greek. To be spiritually effective, an icon (devotional image) should follow its subject’s established visual tradition as closely as possible.
Inscriptions (1)
Inscription #1
Transcription
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.Cross-references (2)
- Wikidata Q60745622 tier-1
- CMA-id 143165 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.