230312 - Large -270 CM - ANTIQUE Ethiopian Painting on canvas - Ethiopia.

Huge altar straw of the Coptic religion, painted in tempera on canvas in the mid 19th cent.

The Coptic Catholic Church is one of the Eastern Catholic churches, which separated from the Coptic Orthodox Church and in communion with the Church of Rome.

It measures 270 cm x 110 cm at the maximum points.

There are insect holes in several places, but not disturbing. In addition, there is a tear of 10 cm in the painting. Painting has been treated so insects free. The canvas has been folded for many years and in some places the polychromy is missing.

It comes from the collection of a former Italian embassy official located in Addis Ababa.

This painting is very old and comes from a church in Lake Tana and is dated about 1800 - 1850. It has been in my collection since 1998.

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