Icon
Christianity became an official religion in Ethiopia around 330 CE, making the Coptic Church the oldest Christian sect in Africa. The artistic traditions that came with it, particularly the making of icons, resemble Byzantine and Medieval art in medium, subject matter, and form. Icons are images of saints, Christ, the Madonna, and, as seen in the object displayed here, narratives such as the Crucifixion. Though icons can be monumental in scale, they are more typically smaller, personal ones, that can easily be closed and easily carried by the owner.
Painted icons and Madonna imagery became popular beginning in the fifteenth century, but it was Jesuit missionaries who arrived from Europe beginning in the mid-sixteenth century who brought with them prints and other visual material that would influence the artistic production in Ethiopia. This small diptych icon and the processional cross share imagery such as the Madonna and child, known in the Ethiopian church as Our Lady Mary with her Beloved Son; St. George on horseback slaying the dragon, found in the register beneath the mother and child; and the crucifixion scene in the upper register of the right panel of the icon, which corresponds to a scene on the back of the cross.