Phoenix Ancient Art S.A.

This beautiful mosaic from the Levant represents two young men, one behind the other, on a white ground. They wear tunics and cloaks clasped on the shoulders by round brooches. One notices in front of the first young man the feet and clothes of a third figure. The group was originally part of a procession, perhaps of the type represented on the mosaics of Saint Apollonious IX, in Ravenna (procession of martyrs). This is the left part of the panel, which was surrounded by a black frame made of small stones arranged according to the opus tessellatum technique (tesserae placed horizontally and vertically).

An inscription in Aramaic runs above the curly heads of the figures. They are brothers: the man on the left carries in his right hand a gilded net, made of glossy tesserae. The heads and the chests of the figures are disproportionate compared to the legs. The waist, indicated by a belt, is placed very low and the feet are summarily represented. This type of representation recalls Coptic paintings of the 6^th century from the convent of Saint Apollo of Baouît (Egypt), in particular the famous representation of Christ wrapping his arm around the abbot Menas displayed in the Louvre Museum: both have similar large eyes topped by thick eyebrows and the same hieratic attitude of the figures. These representations also resemble the Fayoum portraits.

While stylistically very close to Coptic art, our mosaic is also influenced by the long tradition developed in Antioch, whose style retains the Hellenistic litheness. The synthesis between these influences, which one notices in our piece, can be found in the Jerusalem mosaic, displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul. That work, dated between the 5^th and the 6^th century, depicts Orpheus playing the lyre surrounded by animals and fantastic characters.

Technically, this mosaic belongs to the Roman tradition. The white ground is a constant in the ancient tradition, whereas at that time in Ravenna, Byzantine mosaics adopt gilded ground to symbolize the divine.

The workshop that created the panel of the young men had good technique, without, however, having the masterly skill of the Antioch artists. The artist used simple techniques such as the opus tessellatum and the opus reticulatum (tesserae placed diagonally) for the clothing and the background. The faces are more elaborate with finer contours, applying the techniques of opus vermiculatum (tesserae of various shapes, according to the patterns of curved lines) and opus scutulatum (insertion of different size and color tesserae between plain ones).

However,the simplification of the contours and of the human representation, as well as the hieratic figures, are specific to the Byzantine period.

GRABAR A., L’Age d’or de Justinien, de la mort de Théodose à l’Islam, Paris, 1966, pp.186 et 189.

CIMOK F., Mosaics in Istanbul, Istanbul, 2005, pp. 210-213.

CIMOK F., Antioch Mosaics, Istanbul, 1999, pp. 28-29, 72.