230234 - Large -145 CM - ANTIQUE Ethiopian Mary Painting on canvas - Ethiopia.

are, Old Traditional painting on Canvas from Ethiopia.
Painted on cotton in the traditional Ethiopian colors.
The dimensions of this painting are 145 cm x 85 cm.

This painting is very old and comes from a church in Lake Tana. The painting comes from an Italian collection and is dated before 1935. It has been in my collection since 2004.
Representations of the Virgin Mary are among the most important iconographic themes in Ethiopian painting, and stand as testimony to the fundamental theological, devotional and symbolic role the mother of Jesus has played in the construction of Ethiopian religious beliefs, identity and cultural memory.

When the people of highland Ethiopia began to convert to Christianity in the fourth century, Christ’s mother Mary was not an important figure in the religion. By the middle ages, however, many Christians around the world prayed to her and believed that she had supernatural powers. Nowhere was this more true than in highland Ethiopia. In the 1400s, reverence for the Virgin Mary bourgeoned there and stories about her life and miracles spread. Belief in Mary is still so strong there that some have informally claimed that she is more important than Christ. One can still today hear of her miracles on city buses and rural coffee houses, and see her icon in most any highland Ethiopian living room