The Entry into Jerusalem, Constantinople, c.1400
Saint Onuphrius, Greece, Crete (Emmanuel Lambardos), first half of 17th C.
Copyright © The Menil Collection
Following John de Menil’s death in 1973, Dominique’s interests turned to art that is infused with theological meaning and spirit. Byzantine artifacts and icon paintings, along with a small selection of medieval art, now account for approximately 2,000 works of the Menil Collection. Culled primarily from the Mediterranean world, Asia Minor, and Russia, they provide a survey of European art informed by medieval aesthetics.

Included are a number of priceless works, such as a gold casket from early sixth-century Macedonia, very few of which are still in existence. With its small dimensions and ascetic design, this piece most likely functioned as an early Christian funerary object. Also among the holdings is an important sixteenth-century Russian icon, Saint George and the Dragon. This work not only depicts one of the most popular saints of all Christendom, but shows him during his most legendary action. Displaying a masterful style, it is one of the best exemplars of the school of Novgorod.

Other noteworthy works include a fourth- or fifth-century silver Paten, a liturgical altar object of significance in terms of its quality, rarity, and meaning; Head of a Bearded Man, a Gothic cast most likely from the royal domain of King Philip IV around 1300; Emmanuel Lampardos’s Saint Onuphrius, a painting that elicits the grandeur of the great fourteenth-century Byzantine murals of the Balkans; and the stunning Archangels Michael and Gabriel, dated about 1380, during the last phase of the Palaiogan emperors, and meticulously executed with tempera and gold over gesso and cloth.