Week Twenty: Virgin Enthroned Egyptian Coptic Papyrus Painting

May 19, 2019

Week Twenty: Virgin Enthroned Egyptian Coptic Papyrus Painting

The image of the Virgin Mary on display this week in my month-long survey of Marian-themed artworks in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection has a direct connection to the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament. It was painted by an unknown modern Egyptian artisan on a sheet made from papyrus, a reed once plentiful in the Nile River marshes, first pressed from strips into paper for the courts of the Pharaohs, later, used by scribes in the Early Christian communities of Egypt for transcribing sacred texts. This Coptic Orthodox image of the Virgin Enthroned, where Mary sits in regal splendor with the Christ Child on her lap, holding the scroll of his divine authority, shows the influence of Byzantine iconography, but Christianity would follow a different path in Egypt after a 5th century theological dispute with Byzantium, giving rise to a distinctive Coptic Orthodox style of sacred art. The severity of expression typical of icons of the Byzantine school gives way to the feeling of joy and serenity we find in the simply drawn. rounded faces of the Madonna and Child in this iconic painting in the gallery of the Egyptian Coptic Papyri page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)