Ethiopian Portable Wooden Icon. Late 16th century AD. A portable bifacial wooden icon with a central expanding arm cross carved to one face, within geometric borders, hinged, with paintings on the back of the panel and to the inside of the icon representing the Nativity and Saint George; the second face with cross design incorporating five smaller crosses, within geometric borders; panel hinged, with paintings the the reverse and to the inside of the icon representing the Anastasis (Resurrection) and the Stavrosis (Crucifixion); tubular suspension loop above.See Chojnacki, S., 'Notes on Art in Ethiopia in the 16th Century: an Enquiry into the Unknown Author(s)' in Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Vol. 9, July 1971, no.2, pp.21-97, figs.5,14.82 grams, 97mm (3 3/4"). Ex central London gallery; previously in a UK private collection, acquired in London, UK, in 1995.The study of Ethiopian icons allows us to reconstruct particular aspects of Ethiopian life and material culture in the 15th and 16th centuries, such as the military equipment of the Ethiopian cavalrymen. The elaborate caparisons of the 15th century, with characteristic triangular cruppers, usually single collars decorated with bells, cockades between the horses' ears and Turkish stirrups of iron, changed in the 16th century with the addition of a second collar, likely decorated with coloured cords, and replacement in several cases of the stirrups by an iron ring to hold the toe. The slanted breast-girth between the front legs of the horse also becomes more common in the 16th century than it was in the 15th century. [No Reserve]