Detail from the Prayer Book: Harp of Praise in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2009

Prayer Book: Arganona Weddase (The Harp of Praise)

Baselyos

Date: late 17th century

Geography: Ethiopia, Lasta region

Culture: Tigrinya peoples

Medium: Hide, pigment, wood, fiber

Dimensions: H. 6 1/2 x W. 6 1/8 in. (16.5 x 15.5 cm)

Classification: Hide-Documents

Credit Line: Louis V. Bell Fund, 2006

Accession Number: 2006.99

Description: The Harp of Praise is a Marian text of prayers arranged according to the days of the week. In such works, passages of visual elaboration serve to amplify the power of spoken prayers. The subject matter of the four illuminations that enhance this 148-page manuscript range from the introductory image of the author Abba Giyorgis in an attitude of prayer to purely graphic interludes of geometric ornament. It has been proposed that a notation of a hornbill that appears on folio 123 of this work and a number of stylistically related ones are the signature of the scribe Baselyos, including a manuscript of the Four Gospels now in the British Library. He is identified with elegant, refined lines and radically pared-down abstraction.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/319626