LOT 0373

Ethiopian Manuscript Page with The Miracle of the Lame Man

17TH CENTURY A.D.

18 5/8 x 17 1/4 in. (1.88 kg total, 47.2 x 44 cm).

Rectangular vellum leaf with hand-coloured composite scene: top left, Mary in blue mantle holding infant Jesus on her knee, addressing a standing robed figure, red Coptic text above 'How the man with a club foot prayed to Our Lady Mary that she might heal him when he saw the bishop's chastisement'; below left, six standing male figures in colourful robes looking left and a seventh turned to the right with an oversized shoe, red Coptic text above the group 'these are the congregation and this is how he hid his foot with his clothing' and the rightmost figure 'this also is the man with the club foot'; right, seated cleric wearing a mitre beneath a canopy, addressing a group of five followers and pointing to a standing man raising his robe to show his leg, red Coptic text in three panels 'Here is the bishop who asked the Frank that his foot might be healed', 'These are the congregation' and 'How he was healed and how the stone fell from his foot'; mounted in a glazed wooden frame with reveal. [No Reserve]

Collection of David Buxton (1913-2003), author of 'Travels in Ethiopia', 1949.

Cf. similar manuscript of first Gonderine Period in the Art Institute of Chicago, Bound Manuscript: The Miracles of Mary (Te'amire Maryam), 1667-1706, reference no.2002.4, folio 110; Wallis, Budge, E.A.W., The miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and The life of Hannâ (Saint Anne), and The magical prayers of ʻAhĕta Mîkâêl, London, 1900, pls.LXVII-LXVIII; Berzock, K.B., The Miracles of Mary: A Seventeenth Century Manuscript, Chicago, 2000; Mercier et al., L'Arche éthiopienne: Art Chrétien d;Ethiopie, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2000, pp.129-130.

The image refers to the 'Miracle of the Lame Man' in which a man, who had been born lame, prayed before the shrine of the Virgin Mary and was healed. Here, the lame man shows the Archbishop his leg, and explains how he had been healed.