ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s, museum curators in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, purchased a small icon from the city's antiquarian market (Figure 6.1.1). Against a vibrant background of red and green, it shows an encounter between two saints—St. George and abba Gäbrä Märʿawi. While the former is second in popularity only to the Virgin Mary in Ethiopian icon painting, the latter is an obscure 14th-century saint from the northern region of Tǝgray. The icon's style and inscriptions allow for it to be dated to the late 15th or early 16th century. Indeed, it is a prime example of Ethiopian painting of the period. Yet, questions about the work's provenance and context seem almost impossible to answer. Who painted the icon? For what purpose was it created? Since Ethiopian patrons of the period customarily donated religious works to specific monasteries and churches upon their completion, where was it placed, and for what reason? And most puzzling of all, why depict an encounter between these two saints—famous St. George and a virtually unknown local ecclesiastic?
