Roman provincial art in Africa
(2nd - 6th century)

Egyptian woven pattern textiles

	1. Textile with fish from Antinoë, Egypt, ca. 3rd. c. A.D. (Paris: Louvre). While textiles and painting on textiles are very old, the Western technique of woven pattern textiles (design achieved by colored weft threads) originated in Egypt in about 9th c. B.C. and then Mesopotamia and Greece. However, little survives before 3rd c. A.D., and most Ancient Mediterranean textiles are, for various reasons, Egyptian. Here the linen horizontal warp provides a framework for the vertical brightly colored woolen weft. This example is classical in subject and technique. At this point, woven pattern textiles were not an independent art form, in which design takes advantage of the potentials of the medium, but instead imitated fresco painting or mosaic floors.
	2. Egyptian wool on linen tapestry with decorative bands of birds in vine tendrils, 3-4th c. A.D. (London: Victoria and Albert Mus.) Hellenistic in its naturalistic design and color, for the grapes have highlights and the birds have sense of plastic value. But the expressive use of color and symbolic content suggest a date as late as 3-4th c. A.D.
	3. Egyptian textile showing Nereid, 3-4th c. A.D. (Cleveland: Museum of Art). The beautiful Nereid sea nymph is a traditional mythical theme, but the red border square and the grape vine with birds border suggest that it is here injected with new spiritual content. The inorganic nude with big-hips and narrow shoulders seems hieratic, but the eyes are too focused and natural to to be hieratic. Dating is based an assessment of these various contrasting aesthetic values.
	4. Egyptian wool on linen textile fragment showing female head, 3-4th c. A.D. (Detroit: Institute of Arts). While there is here a classical naturalisim, the details of hairdo and jewelry suggest plebeian portraiture. The expressionist elements such as an asymetrical anxiety recall Fayum portrait painings, but the nimbus and large wide-spaced eyes seem hieratic.
	5. Egyptian wool on linen textile with head of Dionysius, the god of wine, with grape vine hair, 3-4th c., A.D. (Washington: Textile Museum). Besides animals, fish and mythological themes, heads were a popular subject matter in these textiles. There are plebeian stylizations, and by this time the Dionysius theme has become spiritually significant, suggesting immortality won through love, and idea widely popular in 3-4th c., not just in Christianity. The inorganic chest and head shape, and the stylized mouth and eyes, express this new spiritual content by sacrificing naturalism.
	6. Textile rondel with square surround showing Adonis and Venus that was originally part of a decorative border of a garment, 4th c. A.D. (Lucerne: Kofler-Tau Niger Coll.) Hellenistic style based on a classical model. Adonis and Venus were divine lovers, but the lush vegitation suggests paradise; old myths perhaps acquire new spiritual content. This is a common type of monochrome indigo colored cloth, often with geometic designs. that were used as borders for clothing. The use of surrounds is peculiar to textile design, functioning, like architectural elements in relief sculpture, to separate a repetitious subject.
	7. Egyptian wool on linen textile showing Hestia Polyolbos - goddesss of the domestic hearth, 4-5th c. A.D. (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Coll.) 1.13 m. high. This is one of the finest textiles surviving the Ancient Mediterranean world. Putti offer jpgts, which are allegorial figures for light, poetry, etc. A controversial textile because its hieratic qualities and technical excellence has suggested the Constantinople court rather than Egypt as the source. On the other hand, the flatening of the figures and other features suggest a Coptic two-dimensionality from Egypt.
	8. Egyptian wool on linen textile decorative panel, 5th c. A.D. (Paris: Coll. Bérard). Early Christian themes in textiles tended to be simple, such as here the vine leaves and head, a combination which suggests it is a portrait of Christ. The Coptic and Syrian churches, influenced by the Greek philosophical tradition in the East Mediterranean, insisted Christ could not really be human and thus imperfect. This panel is probably Monophysite in that it represents Christ as immortal, rather than human.
	9. Egyptian wool on linen textile panel of a cock. Tondo fragment, 5th c. A.D. (Paris: Coll. Bérard). The surround is decorated with palmettes. Christian symbolism shows up relatively late in textile design, only from about the 5th c., a century after the Egyptian aristocracy had already become Christian. Early Christian themes tended to be simple, and it is not clear whether this is an example of the Christian symbol (post tenebras Lux - the announcement of the coming of god), or simply the result of Sassanid Persian influence, seen in the palmette surround, or a blend of influences. The aesthetic depends on sharply contrasting areas of color, repeated decorative pattern with heavy outline, rather than naturalism, as textile design begin to accomodate the the limits and strengths of the woven pattern technique. So woven pattern textile as a distinctive art form comes into its own in the 5th c.
	10. Wool on linen textile decorative panel of a Nilotic scene, ca. 5th c. A.D. (Paris: Louvre). Pagan motifs often adapted by Christian weavers, and so not clear if this a Christian or pagan work. Here child nereids, fishermen, ducks, fish, and lotus in a tradiditional Nilotic scene long used in the Mediterranean world to convey a sense of an open idylic rural life. Here there are simplified and stylized geometic forms, but in some ways the figures remains fundamentally naturalistic.

Egyptian ivories

1. Ivory relief of the city of Alexandria represented as Isis, 6th c. Alexandria (Aachen: Cathedral). The taste for pomp typifies Alexandria, while the solemnity and over abundance of decoration recalls eastern works. However, the distant facial expression is classic.

2. Detail from an ivory pyx showing miracle of the Loaves, Egypt, early 6th c. A.D. Ivory pyxes were mass produced in Egypt in the 6-7th c. It is hard to distinguish between the products of workshops in Alexandria, Antioch or Constantinople because they are heirs of the same neoclassical tradition. This can be seen in the narrative feeling of motion across a stage with some grace and the use of drapery to express the figure. However, we also see here hieratic elements in the frontal faces and arcade background.

Egyptian Panel painting

	1. Encaustic panel painting on gesso on beechwood of St. John the Baptist holding scrolls of "Behold the Lamb of God," etc., Alexandrine (?), 6th c. A.D. (Kiev: City Museum oif Eastern and Western Art). 46 cm. There are nails along the edge of the panel.
	2. Encaustic painting on gesso on larchwood of Virgin and Child, Mount Sinai, 6th c. A.D., probably of Alexandrine origin (Kiev: City Museum of Eastern and Western Art). Upper corners cut away, and the work much restored. Halo originally had a punched design. This panel may originally been part of an Adoration of the Magi.

Egyptian metalwork

1. Bronze lamp with horse-head handle, from a Ballana-period grave at Qasr Ibrm, 1-2nd century (London: British Museum). Probably a Roman import.