Solidus (Coin) of Basil I with Christ Enthroned
Byzantine (now Istanbul, Turkey)
868–870
- Medium
- Gold
- Classification
- Coin
- Dimensions
- Diam.: 2 cm (13/16 in.)
- Culture
- Byzantine Empire
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
- Credit line
- Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The imagery of Byzantine coins, as well as their use—or not—of religious imagery, reflects the different attitudes toward representation of divine figures as a result of the Iconoclastic (from the Greek eikon, or image, and klao, to break) Controversy, a fierce debate among Byzantine theologians over the appropriate role of images in religious worship that raged in Byzantium for over 100 years from about 730 to 843.
In a radical departure from the numismatic imagery of iconoclast emperors, the coin of Basil I (reigned 867-886) has an image of Christ Enthroned on its front, along with an inscription proclaiming the heavenly ruler “King of Kings.”
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
