Early Medieval Art

At the Royal Academy of Arts in London, opening in October.

Cross-posted at Caves to Cathedrals.

Did you know that you do not need PowerPoint to make presentations, and that, in fact, better options may exist? I have tried the MDID image viewer, but I needed somewhere to put the translations of inscriptions, so I did not consider it a useful option.

But valid options exist. Slide Rocket looks amazing, but is not yet available to the public. 280 Slides looks less amazing, but is currently available.

Both of these programs make slideshows much easier to share, as well as facilitate greater mobility (no memory stick to forget).

Matthias Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar: Ein ottonischer Bilderzyklus und sein Zeugniswert für die Rezeptionsgeschichte des Lorscher Evangeliars (Schnell & Steiner, 2008).

Lamia Hadda, Nella Tunisia medievale: Architettura e decorazione islamica (IX-XVI secolo) (Liguori, 2008).

Myla Perraymond, Paradigmi di esegesi figurale nell’arte paleocristiana (Aracne, 2007).

Cecilia Proverbio, La figurea dell’Angelo nella civilta paleocristiana (Tau, 2007).

Anke Reiss, Rezeption frühchristlicher Kunst im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Christlichen Archäologie und zum Historismus (J.H. Roell, 2008).

Unfortunately a news item on fake Coptic reliefs in the Art Newspaper should not surprise anyone. This disclosure comes in anticipation of an exhibition that will open February 2009 at the Brooklyn Museum on “Coptic Sculpture in the Brooklyn Museum”and for which you may only find an old description (on page 7).

I myself wrote an entry on a Coptic medallion with Thekla bound to Two Beasts from the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri in the catalogue for the 2002-2003 exhibition Byzantine Women and Their World. The article dates the earliest suspicions to Gary Vikan in the 1970s, and at the time of the Byzantine Women exhibit, doubts likewise surrounded the authenticity of the Nelson-Atkins medallion. Most of the fakes entered American collections in the 1960s, and, from the accession number, 48-10, I can only assume that this medallion was acquired in 1948. My earliest scholarly reference to it, however, dates to 1962, so this assumption could be wrong.

Needless to say, I eagerly await determination of its authenticity (so that I can cross the entry off my CV!). I am more curious, however, about what reliefs remain and what they can tell us about Coptic art.