Single leaf with Christ's entombment and resurrection

Description This fragmentary leaf once belonged to an Ethiopian Gospel book from the Lake Tana region. Dating from the late fourteenth century, the leaf contains two images from a prefatory cycle depicting the Passion of Christ, which would have preceded the Gospels. On the recto, a shrouded Christ is carried to the tomb by Joseph and Nicodemus. The verso depicts the resurrected Christ, accompanied by the Archangel Michael, appearing before Mary Magdalene, St. John, and St. Peter. Intact Gospel books with comparable image cycles, such as that at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1998.66), and the J. Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M828, demonstrate that these two images likely fell between depictions of the Crucifixion and the Ascension.

Exhibitions

• Angels of Light: Ethiopian Art from the Walters Art Museum. Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; Museum of Biblical Art, New York. 2006-2007.

Provenance Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Knopfelmacher, New York, before 1996 [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1996, by gift.

Credit Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Knopfelmacher, 1996