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Lot
# 593 - Auction is closed.Estimate: US$2500000
/ Unsold
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Tiberius II Constantine. Gold Wedding Medallion, 90.52g, with loop 103.10g
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Tiberius II Constantine. 578-582 AD. Gold Wedding Medallion, 90.52g, with loop 103.10g, Constantinople, c. 582 AD. The obverse iconography of our medallion displays in synoptic fashion the Biblical narrative of the events immediately leading up to the birth of Christ as recorded in the first and second chapters of the Gospel of Luke. This depiction consists of two parts. The upper scene, comprising over half of the entire surface, depicts the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel's visitation and announcement that the Virgin Mary will give birth to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:26-38). The circular inscription beginning at 9:00 records the angel’s greeting to Mary, as recorded in Luke 1:28 : XAIPE KEXAPITOMENH O K[YRIO]C META COV. ("Hail, most favored one! The Lord is with You.").The winged angel, Gabriel, nimbate, raises his right hand. While this gesture has been described as one of salutation, the raised hand in ancient art more properly denotes the act of speech. This is in fact, the moment of his message, the first words of which are stated in the inscription. His declaration is enhanced by the Chi-Rho placed prominently in the space between their visual line of mutual communication. The angel wears a chiton, mantle and sandals. In his left hand he holds a staff, both ends decorated with an orb emerging from a pair of leaves. Mary, seated frontally on a lyre-backed throne and turning to face him, is also nimbate and wears a chiton and a mantle which covers her head and shoulders. The consternation and confusion of a woman who has just been told that she is about to become the mother of God is expressed by the gesture with her right hand, by the backwards tilt of her head and her staring eyes. Her left hand holds the thread that she has been spinning, the end of which falls into the basket at her feet. This may be an allusion to her selection in the Marian cycle as the one to weave the purple wool for the Temple veil. Mary sits on a pearl-studded cushion, with her feet resting on a jeweled footstool. The smaller lower scene illustrates the events following the Annunciation: on the left, the visitation of Mary and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1:39-56), in the center, Mary reclining on a palliasse and the incident of the midwife Salome’s withered hand (Protoevangelium of James 19:3-20:4,), and on the right, the Nativity (Luke 2:1-21). The first scene on the left is a small tiled building, the entrance of which is partially covered by a pulled back drapery. This could be the Temple in Jerusalem, where Mary and her cousin Elizabeth served together as attendants. Other interpretations refer to it as the place where Mary stayed before the Nativity of Christ, or an allusion to the royal lineage of her Son. Next to it, the two heavily pregnant women embrace, Mary conspicuous by her halo. In the center, resting on a palliasse, lies the nimbate Virgin. To her right stands the disbelieving midwife Salome, whose fingers withered when she tried to test Mary's virginity after Christ's birth: now she is stretching her hands towards Mary and begging to be healed. While Salome is not mentioned in any Gospel account of the Nativity, the story of this woman appears in the Protoevangelium of James, a Christian apocryphal text produced probably at the end of the second century in Egypt. Below Mary is the wash basin of Christ's purification. To the right of Salome is the depiction of the Nativity: an ox and an ass face the infant Jesus in the manger, a star above it. Joseph sits beside the manger, propping his chin on his right hand and thoughtfully looking at the Infant Christ. Below, a shepherd holding a staff in his right hand, and raising his left hand in a gesture of amazement at the star, stands with his sheep. The reverse of our medallion portrays the Ascension of Christ into Heaven (Mark 16:19). Christ is shown nimbate and bearded, raising His right hand and holding in left a scroll, enthroned in a mandorla supported by 4 angels. The mandorla is a conventional term for the aureole shown surrounding an entire figure to indicate the Divine presence. It commonly envelops Christ in scenes of His Transfiguration and Ascension in sixth century art. The Ascension, initially displayed in a manner reminiscent of imperial apotheosis scenes, with Christ striding upward grasping the Hand of God, assumed in the sixth century the form that this medallion displays. Below Christ stand the eleven disciples of Scripture plus Paul, holding a long cross, with Mary at their center. The presence of Mary and the addition of Paul to the eleven disciples are references to the Church, showing the Ascension as a major event in its history. Beneath the exergual line is the three- line inscription:
H XAPIC TOY K[YRIO]V HMWN / I[HCO]V X[PICTO]Y META PANT / WN VMWN
(“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”). A few minor bits of restoration have been done since we received the medallion. Two parts of the original frame had become separated and the medallion itself had a slightly wavy surface. These have been resolved as were two very minor scrapes. EF.
This medallion was struck to commemorate the wedding of Tiberius II Constantine's daughter Charito in 582 to Germanus, the Magister Utriusque Militae (general in charge of infantry and cavalry). A very graceful allusion to the emperor’s daughter Charito’s name is contained in the use of the Greek word KE[XAPITO]MENH (“most favored one) in the obverse inscription of our medallion.
This individual was proclaimed Caesar along with the future emperor Maurice in August 582. However, he is not further noted after becoming Caesar. One of the ancient sources, John of Nikiu, states that "owing to his humility of heart he refused to be emperor", so Maurice ascended to the throne alone. The obverse die of our medallion was used to produce the reverse of a similar wedding medallion in the Christian Schmidt Collection in Munich, Inv. No. 378, which weights 40.90g. The obverse of the Munich medallion portrays a Byzantine royal couple blessed by Christ, and is dated to the 582 A.D. marriage. The Schmidt medallion was made by hammering sheets of gold foil into the dies that were used to strike our medallion, then placing the two pieces of gold foil into a bezel for presentation. The hand that produced the dies for this medallion also produced those for the similar wedding medallion in the Dumbarton Oaks collection. That medallion was found in Cyprus in 1906 with a large gold treasure that also included smaller medallions bearing the portrait of Tiberius II, which were part of a belt. Both this medallion and the Dumbarton Oaks specimen were struck and like the Schmidt piece were a wedding gift from the emperor. The greater the weight of the medallion, the more important was the recipient. This protocol is an established fact when it comes to gold bullas on Byzantine documents.
If we take the reign of Anastasius I, 491-518 AD, to be the beginning of the Byzantine era, then when counting struck gold medallions there is the Dumbarton Oaks specimen which has been famous for over a century, and the Justinian I medallion which was in Paris (BN 1) but was melted after the 1831 robbery, and ours. This medallion, commemorating the marriage of Tiberius II ‘s daughter, is the only large struck Byzantine gold medallion available to the public.
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