A Gaze from the Fourth Century. Part two: the rendering of Christ in the Temple Icon of the Theotokos

Abstract

In the article published in Byzantinoslavica, vol. 65, 2007 about the so-called ‘Temple icon’ in London, I argue that this piece on cloth in wax encaustic technique (now in a private collection) dates from the fourth century. In doing so I opposed the estimation of it belonging to the sixth-seventh centuries made, among others, by Robin Cormack. Within that piece I brought evidence in connection to Mary. In the current paper I provide information which refers especially to the way the infant Jesus is depicted within the icon in order to back this dating: Christ is shown wearing a tunic with purple clavi, a bulla, and an earring in the manner Roman children display in the portraits that survived from the third-fourth centuries AD. There are depictions of youngsters similar to such a rendering at Antinoopolis (c. AD 250-300) and Fayum (four century).Additionally, I add a later observation concerning the Virgin: there are communalities between the icon in the UK and the Hodegetria wood panel in the chapel of St. Francisca Romana, which has been certainly attested to the fifth century - nuclear magnetic resonance sensors have been used for such a purpose. The most striking common features are the style in which the face of Mary is depicted and the manner in which the expression of her eyes has been rendered in both icons. Moreover, the shape of Mary’s vestment around the neck and its general appearance are the same in both icons. The pieces date from the pre-iconoclastic period and were transported from the East in countries pertaining to Western Christendom: the icon in Rome by Angelo Frangipane (in the fifth or sixth century), the other one probably by merchants or Napoleon’s army (to France, from where Richard Temple and Laurence Morocco brought it to the UK).

Keywords

• icon, egypt, christ, mary theotokos, fourth century ad