Painted Copy of Deesis Mosaic

Unknown

late 1930s (original dated 1261–1300) · Paint on canvas · Medieval Art

The original mosaic displaying the Deesis (Christ flanked by the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist) was one of the finest works produced in Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Concealed for centuries after the fall of the city to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the mosaic was one of the many in Hagia Sophia restored by the Byzantine Institute of America in the late 1930s. The newly revealed mosaics were the focus of an exhibition at the Museum in 1944, when this work, the only full-scale, exact, and authorized copy of the Deesis mosaic, was featured.

Artist

Unknown

Date

late 1930s (original dated 1261–1300)

Medium

Paint on canvas

Culture

Byzantine

Department

Medieval Art

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941