Two miniatures from a Book of Old Testament Prophets

Unknown

about 1300

Tempera colors and gold, Tempera Colors, Gold

J. Paul Getty Museum

These two miniatures, made in Sicily around the year 1300, once belonged to the same manuscript. They show rarely-depicted episodes from the biblical books of Isaiah and Zechariah. Their elongated figures, fluid and brightly highlighted drapery, and delicate use of color are characteristic of art made in the later years of the Byzantine Empire, which was the eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), that existed from 330-1453 CE. There was a community of Greek artists on Sicily in the early fourteenth century, who painted in a style reminiscent of Byzantine art, and one of them may have made these miniature