This carved cedarwood panel depicting the Baptism and Annunciation of Jesus is one of a set of ten impressive iconographic panels from a door at the Holy Virgin Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church, also known as the Hanging Church, in Cairo, Egypt. Using a motif frequently employed in medieval Eastern Orthodox art, the top scene shows a bearded Jesus waist-deep in the Jordan River, with John the Baptist extending his arm over Jesus and three angels holding garments on the opposite side. In the lower register, an angel approaches the Virgin Mary to announce Jesus’s coming birth. The door panels, which […]
