On view
Plaque with the Crucifixion,
10th century
Liturgy in the Byzantine Empire
With the rise of Christianity in the fourth century CE, devotional objects were crafted for the liturgical rites and spiritual practices of the Byzantine Empire, anchored in present-day Istanbul. As the Emperor Justinian I (482–565) accumulated wealth, territory, and power, theologians heightened the drama and spectacle of the liturgy to signal the central role of religion and faith in maintaining imperial order and expressing authority. To enhance the spiritual atmosphere when the sacramental Eucharist was presented to worshippers as the body of Christ, the Byzantine liturgy accommodated expansive and multisensory religious processions and rites. Censers filled with aromatic incense perfumed the church, and oil lamps and candles illuminated metal objects and gilded devotional images. Theologians generated analogies between the splendor and value of the luxurious materials used to create devotional objects and the purity of Christ. Images of the cross became a ubiquitous sign of Christ’s martyrdom and its promise of salvation for the faithful.
More Context
The simplicity of the composition and the style of the figures place this plaque in the so-called Nikephoros Group of ivories made in Constantinople in the tenth century. Drill holes served to affix the plaque to another object. In the Byzantine tradition of a triumphant Christ, Jesus seems to stand erect rather than hang on the cross, his feet supported by a projecting platform and his arms perfectly horizontal. The cross divides the field into irregular quadrants, the upper ones with the sun and the moon, the lower, with the weeping Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist, who holds a Gospel book. The bejeweled book, together with the directness of the saint’s gaze — a contrast with Mary’s open grief — would have reminded the plaque’s owner of Christ’s message of hope and redemption.;
Information
10th century
Turkey, Constantinople
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