Painted Copy of Deesis Mosaic

late 1930s (original dated 1261–1300)

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 305

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.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

References

Title: Painted Copy of Deesis Mosaic
Date: late 1930s (original dated 1261–1300)
Geography: Made in Constantinople (original)
Culture: Byzantine
Medium: Paint on canvas
Dimensions: 12 ft. 11 1/2 in. × 19 ft. 8 7/8 in. (395 × 601.7 cm)
Classification: Reproductions-Mosaics
Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941
Object Number: 41.137
Curatorial Department: Medieval Art and The Cloisters

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