Black Magi sightings 2

 

As I discovered with Black Victorians, there turn out to be many more images than one imagines/knows of  and certainly this elegant young Magus, who's carrying a jar of myrrh [and whom I'll call a Balthazar although there are disputes as to which King has which honorary name...] had previously escaped my knowledge.  

 He's from a late 15th century altarpiece in the Lichtenthal convent in south-west Germany, up a tributary of the Rhine, the gift of the abbess Margarethe of Baden.   Now he's in NYC, in the Met's famous medieval section, together with his elder companions bearing gold and frankincense.  

They appear to have been detached from the ensemble in the 1700s, removed from the convent in the 1930s and sold via Sothebys before  purchase by the Met in 1952. They are tall, excellently carved and superbly painted - except for the backs, which will not have been visible when the whole ensemble was up - and notable for what the Met describes as their 'balletic poses'. Balthazar has very shapely legs and stylish boots clearly made of softest leather.