Whittemore, Thomas [Hrsg.]; Byzantine Institute of America [Mitarb.]: The mosaics of Haghia Sophia at Istanbul: preliminary report (3rd preliminary report): The imperial portraits of the south gallery: work done in 1935 and 1938 (Oxford: printed by John Johnson at the Oxford University Press for the Byzantine Institute, 1942)

NOTES 37
52. There exist no other portraits of Irene: her supposed image on the Paia d’Oro of Venice represents
in reality the wife of Alexios I (J. Ebersolt, Les Arts somptuaires de Byzance, Paris, 1923, p. 94). For the
portraits of John II, see Lampros, AtuKcona, Pls. 67, 71, and especially 68 (contemporary miniature of
Cod. Urbin. 2 of the Vatican). A probable representation of John II still as a child in the Barberini
Psalter Gr. 372 (nth cent., Lampros, ibid., Pl. 97; cf. Jerphanion, op. cit., pp. 270-1). Effigies on coins
(reproducing as for Constantine IX the more ancient types): Wroth, op. cit., ii, Pls. LXVI-LXVIII.
Records of disappeared portraits: E. Miller, Manuelis Philae Carmina, Paris, 1855, pp. 354-5, and
Sp. Lampros in Neo$ cEAAt|VO|jvt||Jcov, viii, 1911, pp. 127-8, 148-50, 173.
53. Cf. George Santayana, The Realm of Truth, London, 1937, passim.
54. ‘I have finished a picture when I no longer need the model—the model is in me, the object is
absorbed, subject and object are one. I then express myself.’ Conversation with Monsieur Henri
Matisse, Nice, 1937.
55. Cf. the contemporary descriptions of John II by Anna Comnena (Alexiad, vi. 8, Bonn, p. 298,
John still child) and Guillaume de Tyr (Historiarum rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. Recueil des
Historiens des Croisades, Hist. Occ., i, p. 655). It appears from these texts that John was a man rather
small, black, and ugly. One would rather compare the mosaic—where these physical defects are
evidently mitigated—with the official descriptions of the emperor, e.g. with his ‘epitaphs’ (Theodore
Prodromes, Migne, P.G.,t. 133,col. 1302 fF.and 1405 fF.,JohnGeometer,Migne, P.G., t.106, col. 903 ff.).
56. Cf. Ebersolt, op. cit., pp. 96-8, and Du Cange, Dissertation XXIV sur I’Histoire de St. Louis
(after the edition of Joinville), Paris, 1668, p. 251.
57. Similar ornaments on the miniature of Urbino 2 and in the Dogmatic Panoply of the Vatican
(portraits of Alexios I. F. Chaiandon, Essai sur le regne d’Alexis I Comnene, Paris, 1900, frontispiece
and p. 50). Note especially the elongation of the stems characteristic of the development of floral
motives in time of the Comneni.
58. ‘. . . Is it from the time you have been robed with purple and bedecked with gold, when you
wear gems from foreign mountains and seas, placing them now on your brow, now on your feet,
now round your waist, now suspended from your person, now buckled on your garments, now used
as a seat? You have certainly in that way been made a variegated and multicoloured vision like the
peacocks’ (Synesius to the Emperor Arcadios. De Regno. 1080, p. 126. Translation by Augustine Fitz-
gerald, Oxford, 1930).
59. Perhaps an imitation of imperial signature in vermilion, cf. J. Moravcsik, The Holy Crown of
Hungary, p. 4 (reprint from The Hungarian Quarterly, iv, 1938).
60. For this empress of Hungarian origin see J. Moravcsik, Die Tochter Ladislaus des Heiligen und
das Pantocrator-Kloster in Konstantinopel (reprint from Mitteilungen des Ungarischen Wissenschaftlichen
Instituts in Konstantinopel, 7-8, 1923), with quotation of Byzantine texts praising her beauty (koH ovyyti
KaAAei '4'uyfjs dpou Kai awiaaTOS AtaAatiTrouaa).
61. Similar artificial tresses worn by Byzantine women are mentioned by Nicetas Choniates, Historia,
Bonn, p. 786. On the general use of wigs in Byzantium see E. Molinier, ‘La Coiffure des femmes dans
quelques monuments byzantins’ [Etudes d’Histoire du Moy en Age, dediees a G. Monod, Paris, 1896, pp. 61 ff).
In the case of Irene one has to bear in mind, however, her Western birth. It is known, indeed, that at
this time Western women used to wear tresses which there is no reason to suppose were artificial.
62. Ashar, Hakim, a.d. 1003: Giyshi, 1085, Cairo. Conversations with Professor Alan J. B.
Wace.
63. Cf. other examples of similar representations of tissue: above note 56 and N. Kondakov, Izobra-
zenija russkoj knjazeskoj sem’i v miniatjurach XI v., St. Petersburg, 1906, Pl. VI, and O. v. Falke, op. cit.,
fig. 215.
64. The girdle as the sign of aristocracy: cf. Book of Ceremonies, Bonn, pp. 257, 10; 612, 12. Cedrenus,
Historiarum Compendium, Bonn, ii, p. 103, 15; quoted by A. Vogt, ‘Histoire des Institutions. Note sur
la Patricienne a la ceinture’, Echos d’Orient, Nos. 191-2, juillet-decembre 1938.
65. For this prince who died before his father and of whom there remain no descriptions nor any
other portraits except those of our mosaic and of the Urbino 2, see F. Chaiandon, Jean II Comnene et
Manuel Comnene, Paris, 1912, pp. 11 ff