DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55207#0021
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THE EMPEROR
On Christ’s right, all but touching the throne, is the standing figure, desig-
nated by the inscription above it as Constantine IX. The Emperor leans slightly
towards Christ in offering the traditional apokombion, his gift of a purse of
gold solidi [15].
Constantine’s face is round and ruddy, in rose, lemon-yellow and olive-grey
stone, used with sensitive variation for the substance of flesh; giving the impres-
sion of a rough complexion and of blood circulating under the skin—almost
bronze or even copper. His forehead is drawn narrow, his brow salient; his
cheek bones high, resembling the Scythian. His nose is straight, with sharply-
defined wings. A small, weak, frivolous mouth, indicating an excess of humour,
is partly hidden under a heavy moustache. The short flaxen beard frames the
face and partly conceals the chin. All that is real and essential in traits of
character seems caught in this portrayal [16].
The Emperor wears the stemma, a circlet of ductile gold encrusted with
transparent yellowish enamel and studded with large round pearls in two
rows [17]. At the front, in glass, is represented, we may suppose, a large beryl,
perhaps flawless enough to be an emerald, cut in a rectangle, and above this
is a cross, composed of four pear-shaped pearls, with a large central pearl
flanked on either side by a pear-shaped pearl. The prependulia hanging from
the crown are strings of pearls ending in three pear-shaped pearls and three
pearl drops. A dolomite of a subdued white [18], never polished, with a
natural texture of the peculiar orient of a pearl is employed by the mosaicist
throughout for this ornament.
Deep ultramarine outlines the nimbus.
Constantine is vested in chiton, divitission or sticharion-basilikon and loros;
the chiton appears only in the collar and the cuff, woven in gold and orna-
mented. The divitission is of reddish-violet silk, with metallic threads of
gold dividing the tissue into squares by diagonal rows of crosses, each square
containing a gold rectangle [19]. A medallion, apparently also woven in the
tissue, ornaments the upper part of the sleeve. The ground is of gold, carrying
a green stone, very much like a beryl, held by gold claws; its border of deepest
violet is studded with pearls. The shoulder-piece is of heavier silk, likewise
embellished with semi-precious stones.
Over the divitission the Emperor wears a jewelled loros, differing in shape
and decoration from that worn by Constantine and Justinian in the Vestibule
panel. The broad band of this loros has an opening through which the head
passes; the front piece hangs full length of the body; and behind, the loros
THE EMPEROR
On Christ’s right, all but touching the throne, is the standing figure, desig-
nated by the inscription above it as Constantine IX. The Emperor leans slightly
towards Christ in offering the traditional apokombion, his gift of a purse of
gold solidi [15].
Constantine’s face is round and ruddy, in rose, lemon-yellow and olive-grey
stone, used with sensitive variation for the substance of flesh; giving the impres-
sion of a rough complexion and of blood circulating under the skin—almost
bronze or even copper. His forehead is drawn narrow, his brow salient; his
cheek bones high, resembling the Scythian. His nose is straight, with sharply-
defined wings. A small, weak, frivolous mouth, indicating an excess of humour,
is partly hidden under a heavy moustache. The short flaxen beard frames the
face and partly conceals the chin. All that is real and essential in traits of
character seems caught in this portrayal [16].
The Emperor wears the stemma, a circlet of ductile gold encrusted with
transparent yellowish enamel and studded with large round pearls in two
rows [17]. At the front, in glass, is represented, we may suppose, a large beryl,
perhaps flawless enough to be an emerald, cut in a rectangle, and above this
is a cross, composed of four pear-shaped pearls, with a large central pearl
flanked on either side by a pear-shaped pearl. The prependulia hanging from
the crown are strings of pearls ending in three pear-shaped pearls and three
pearl drops. A dolomite of a subdued white [18], never polished, with a
natural texture of the peculiar orient of a pearl is employed by the mosaicist
throughout for this ornament.
Deep ultramarine outlines the nimbus.
Constantine is vested in chiton, divitission or sticharion-basilikon and loros;
the chiton appears only in the collar and the cuff, woven in gold and orna-
mented. The divitission is of reddish-violet silk, with metallic threads of
gold dividing the tissue into squares by diagonal rows of crosses, each square
containing a gold rectangle [19]. A medallion, apparently also woven in the
tissue, ornaments the upper part of the sleeve. The ground is of gold, carrying
a green stone, very much like a beryl, held by gold claws; its border of deepest
violet is studded with pearls. The shoulder-piece is of heavier silk, likewise
embellished with semi-precious stones.
Over the divitission the Emperor wears a jewelled loros, differing in shape
and decoration from that worn by Constantine and Justinian in the Vestibule
panel. The broad band of this loros has an opening through which the head
passes; the front piece hangs full length of the body; and behind, the loros