At the Cluny Museum, the ivory diptych of Consul Areobindus captures ceremonial power, intricate artistry, and Byzantine spectacle, linking personal memory with the enduring legacy of late Roman political symbolism.
The Enkolpion of Empress Maria
The Enkolpion of Empress Maria can indeed be read as an object where private devotion and public dynastic messaging converge: a jewel-like reliquary that compresses Theodosian family identity, Christian legitimacy, and political continuity into a portable emblem of Late Antique power and sanctified lineage.
Pendant with the Bust of an Empress
The pendant in the Getty collection cannot be securely identified as Aelia Flacilla. Although its imperial iconography and late 4th-century date place it within the Theodosian milieu, the lack of inscriptions or provenance makes any specific portrait attribution—however tempting—ultimately speculative rather than demonstrable.
Silver Flabellum in the Collection of the Dumbarton Oaks
A 6th-century silver flabellum (rhipidion), now at Dumbarton Oaks, exemplifies both liturgical function and artistic refinement, once used to honor the Eucharist and protect sacred elements.
The astonishing Tapestry of Dionysus at Abegg-Stiftung
The Abegg-Stiftung’s Dionysus tapestry reveals the god of wine and ecstasy surrounded by lush ornament and mythic figures, reflecting Late Antique beliefs in joy, abundance, and life beyond death.
Apolausis the personification of Enjoyment
Ancient Antioch, once a major Hellenistic and early Christian metropolis, yielded remarkable Roman mosaics during 1930s excavations, including the Apolausis “Enjoyment” floor mosaic from a luxurious bath complex.
Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket
Late Antique textiles from Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, like the Met’s Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket, reveal how luxury fabrics expressed abundance, status, and the cultural ideal of the “good life.”
Portrait Medallion of Gennadios
Gennadios — a gold-on-sapphire-glass portrait medallion from Alexandria — is an exquisitely engraved masterpiece celebrating a musically accomplished youth, and one of the most captivating Late Antique treasures at the Metropolitan Museum.
Mosaics from the Ilissos Basilica in Athens
The Ilissos Basilica, a 5th-century Early Christian monument in Athens, once richly adorned, now lies largely forgotten; its exquisite mosaics survive in the Byzantine and Christian Museum.
Dioscurides and Krithamo
The Vienna Dioscurides — a breathtaking 515 AD Byzantine manuscript gifted to Anicia Juliana — preserves Greek botanical wisdom and over a thousand medicinal plants in luminous illuminated splendour.