Silver Coptic Cross With Christ With Markedly African Features. Sec.xiv

Superb Coptic cross, in engraved chiseled silver foil and with gold highlights. Interesting medieval iconography, with Christ with markedly African features, holding the Holy Scroll in his hand. At the ends of the Cross, in the four arms, the figures carved in relief of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The thick shaped sheet structure suggests that the Cross was originally inserted in the wooden cover of a Book of Gospels. Probably at the end of the nineteenth century the Cross was expertly assembled in a wooden support
The iconography of both Christ and the Apostles and angels around Christ are considerably more archaic than the shape of the cruciger structure, but the oval cross heads with cusped corners allow the object to be dated to the second half of XIV century. Cm.29x23