On view
Censer with New Testament scenes: Annunciation, Nativity, Baptism, Crucifixion, and Women at the Sepulcher,
7th century
Early Byzantine
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.
Information
7th century
Palestine
- Kurt Weitzmann, "An East Christian censer", Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University 3, no. 2 (Autumn, 1944): p. 2-4., p. 2-4; fig. 1-5
- "Accessions", Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University 3, no. 1 (Spring, 1944): p. 15., p. 15
- Dorothy Eugenia Miner, Early Christian and Byzantine art: an exhibition held at The Baltimore Museum of Art, (Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1947)., p. 71, no. 298
- Slobodan Curcic and Archer St. Clair, Byzantium at Princeton: Byzantine art and archaeology at Princeton University: catalogue of an exhibition at Firestone Library, Princeton University, August 1 through October 26, 1986, (Princeton, NJ: Dept. of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton University Library, Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections, 1986)., cat. no. 92, p. 93
-
Ilse Richter-Siebels, Die palästinensischen Weihrauchgefässe mit Reliefszenen aus dem Leben Christi, (Berlin: Zentrale Universitäts-Druckerei, 1990).
-
Slobodan Curcic, ed., Architecture as icon: perception and representation of architecure in Byzantine art, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2010).
, cat. no. 58, p. 290-293 (illus.)
