2-999-361 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Silver Gospels, 1488. Cover of a Gospels manuscript written in 937 of the Armenian era [1488 CE] in the province of Ekeleac' by the priest Lazar at the monastery of Surb Awgsend (St. Auxentius). Though the fifteenth-century manuscript was not a terribly costly production, it later came to be housed in this magnificent binding with large silver plaque showing the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple. This silver binding, which can be assigned to the seventeenth or early eighteenth century, was likely produced in Kayseri (Turkey).