Ethiopia Illustrated: Manuscripts and Painting in Ethiopia – Examples from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century
Chapter one, ‘An Ethiopian Crucifixion: A Pictorial Interpretation of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ and the Triumphs and Tribulations of the Metropolitan Abunä Sälama III’, presents a painted biography of Abunä Sälama, the metropolitan bishop of Ethiopia from 1841 to his death as a prisoner of the Ethiopian emperor in 1867. The pictures tell a unique story, combining the religious message of the death of Christ with events in Sälama’s life in Ethiopia
Chapter two, ‘The Pictorial Representation of Equestrian Saints and Their Victims: A Case Study of St. Claudius and Sebetat’, is an in-depth investigation of a composite creature called a ‘Sebetat’—a hybrid monster with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and one or two snakes as its tail, with no equivalent in European bestiaries. Sebetat is an evil-doer, although we are not told what he has done. He is often depicted under the hooves of richly caparisoned horses ridden by St. Claudius or sometimes St. Victor—both noble-born martyrs and saints wearing beautiful clothes. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a whole cavalry of military saints, who gallop on the north wall of painted churches—the men’s wall—and trample their enemies
Chapter three, ‘The Wall Paintings of Däräsge Maryam Church, in the Sämen Mountains, Ethiopia, and in particular the Painted Procession on the East Wall’, focuses on the lowest register of the paintings on the east wall of this important church. From the early nineteenth century onwards, painted churches showed not only religious scenes, but also historico-political interpretations of local events. In Däräsge Maryam, the paintings on the lowest register show a procession of political agents and their adversaries; the new emperor; ecclesiastical dignitaries and their acolytes, musicians, and so on; and possibly the first ever visit of a Coptic Patriarch to Ethiopia, that of Cyril IV in 1856
Chapter four, ‘Contacts and Comparisons: The Illuminations of the Gospel according to Luke in the Tetraevangelium of Märtula Maryam’, delights us with paintings of gospel scenes created c.1655—some two hundred years before the paintings we see in the chapters. The scene is instantly recognizable, despite the Ethiopianized treatmen
The next three chapters turn to secular topics. They introduce two Germans, Georg Wilhelm Schimper and Eduard Zander, who lived in Ethiopia for forty and thirty years respectively. Schimper collected plant specimens, dried them, and sent them to European herbaria and collections. His work forms the largest corpus of Ethiopian plant specimens to date. He was also an acute observer of the country’s geology, geography, mineralogy, meteorology, ethnography, food production, healing customs, and politics. His two manuscript books have been published online. Chapter five, ‘Botanist and Explorer, Geologist and Mapmaker in Northern Ethiopia 1837 to 1878’, introduces the reader to Schimper’s work, his life in Ethiopia, his scientific methods, family life, and map-making processes (Fig. 5), while Chapter six, ‘The Region of Adwa and Begemder on the Manuscript Maps of 1864/65 by G. W. Schimper’, is a case study of Schimper’s meticulous research notes.
Chapter seven, ‘Eduard Zander, His Life and Work in Ethiopia, 1847–1868’ then introduces the artist Eduard Zander (1813–1868). He was a trained painter and draughtsman who made pen and ink drawings of scenes of everyday life, which are kept in the British Museum, London. His catalogue raisonné was published by me in 2018. Many of his drawings were sent to Germany from Ethiopia in the nineteenth century, but were lost in the Second World War. His 1859 treatise on agriculture has survived along with around 100 drawings, some of them only as engravings in published books. His sketchbook has also survived and is kept in the British Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings
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