t is clear that this throne is heavy, sculptural, and powerfully three-dimensional, a most remarkable setting for the Virgin and Child. The way the throne encloses the two figures in an exclusive spatial zone is quite different from the comparatively flat, expansive, and open throne of the Kahn Madonna. Although recent scholarly attempts to locate the source of the Mellon Madonna throne type in contemporary Eastern painting have successfully identified its Eastern, Byzantine origins, including Byzantine images of the Annunciation, as seen in certain Greek gospel books, the question still remains: What is the meaning of this memorable and very special throne? I suggest that, surprisingly perhaps, its interpretation may be rooted in the familiar iconography of the Throne of Solomon.

The Annunciation (c. 1280). The Angel Gabriel Informs the Virgin Mary She Is to Be the Mother of God. Manuscript illumination. (Courtesy of Biblioteque nationale de France, Paris.)

There are two descriptions of the Throne of Solomon in the Old Testament: the fuller account is found at I Kings 10: 18–20 (and the other is at II Chronicles 9: 17–19:

King Solomon also made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the finest gold. It had six steps; and the top of the throne was round behind; and there were two hands [arms] on either side holding the seat; and two lions stood, one at each hand. And twelve little lions stood upon the six steps on the one side and on the other; there was no such work made in any kingdom.

I propose that the Crusader artist of the Mellon Madonna painted this impressive gilded throne with the round back as a direct reference to the ivory Throne of Solomon in order to represent the Virgin not simply as the Hodegetria from the Byzantine tradition but also as a Crusader version of the Sedes Sapientiae, the "Seat of Wisdom." The visual evidence suggests that the artist worked selectively with the text of I Kings. He emphasized the rounded back of the throne by transforming it into a diminutive arena-like form that has reminded some of the colosseum or even a bullring in Spain. The representation of the ivory is perhaps less obvious, but the following is clear: whereas in the Kahn Madonna the color of the throne and the footstool is the same, a light orangish-brown, in the Mellon Madonna the throne is a different color from that of the footstool, a muddy greenish-brown color that perhaps is possibly meant to suggest a patina over ancient gilded ivory.

The idea of interpreting the Virgin as the Throne of Wisdom is obviously familiar to us from the work of Western theologians such as Peter Damian, Guibert de Nogent, and Adam of St. Victor in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, based on their typological reading of the Kings passage cited above. Furthermore, Ilene Forsyth has described the Throne of Wisdom as follows: It is "a complex concept wherein the Virgin is seen in majesty, hence called Maiestas, and is understood as both the Mother of God and the cathedra or seat of Jesus, the Logos incarnate. As a mother, she supports her son in her lap, yet as the Mother of God she serves as a throne for the incarnation of Divine Wisdom. Thus Christ's humanity and divinity are equally apparent in the image so that it expresses clearly and simply the profound meaning of the Incarnation." Forsyth has focused primarily on Romanesque sculpture of course, but the iconographic points she is making pertain to the imagery more broadly, and therefore indirectly to our image as well.

My argument here that the Mellon Madonna represents the Virgin enthroned as the Sedes Sapientiae, however, resides not only on the solid theological tradition known from Western Europe and the visual specifications the Crusader artist has made in the image as related to the passage in I Kings but also on the broad range of possibilities for such imagery among extant examples dating before 1300. In particular I point to the existence of a wide variety of sculptural images dating from before around 1200 in France, Italy, and Germany. What is significant in these early examples is that the throne is often explicitly represented with architectural ornamentation but hardly ever with the more familiar lions or the steps mentioned in the text, which play such an important role in the more allegorical iconography of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. It is also interesting that the iconography of the throne itself is so variable. Indeed, emphasis on the rounded back of the throne or its ivory material is relatively rare and is usually difficult to see.

Madonna and Child Enthroned (c. 1150-1200). Madonna and Child in Majesty. Wood sculpture (height 29.5 inches). (Courtesy North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina.)

For example, certain twelfth-century examples, such as the Madonna and Child Enthroned in the North Carolina Museum, in Raleigh, have rounded backs in plan, but not in elevation. Nonetheless, the remarkable achievement of the Mellon Madonna master is to have interpreted the passage "and the top of the throne was round behind" so that we can see this aspect of the form of this magnificent throne and understand its significance, even without an inscription.

I suggest further that what Forsyth has to say about the Romanesque sculptural images of the Throne of Wisdom is relevant, mutatis mutandis, to this Crusader image: "The process by which sculpture was accepted as having religious validity in the West, bears many similarities to the emergent cult of images in the East. There, religious images 'acquired the position and function which imperial images had enjoyed.' Their entrance into religious life was chiefly fostered by the 'desire to make the presence of the Deity and of the saints . . . visually palpable.' In the West that palpability was given additional reality through the use of the third dimension and it was endowed with an expression of transcendence through the use of the Maiestas pose." I am proposing that our Crusader artist also sought to make this Virgin enthroned as the Sedes Sapientiae more "visually palpable" by inventing for her a splendid three-dimensional throne of ivory with a round back that would express her unique importance as the Mother of the Wisdom of God. The possibility that he may in fact have been inspired by a cult image in sculpture as he worked on this painting in the Crusader Levant remains to be determined, but the importance of the remarkable iconographic program of this work should not be obscured by our lack of information on its most immediate sources. Just as the image of the Virgin as the Throne of Wisdom became an important cult image in the Romanesque and Gothic West, here we can recognize a significant and distinctive Crusader contribution to the iconography of holy images and the Throne of Wisdom in the later thirteenth-century Levant. In sum, the Mellon Madonna is a genuinely composite Crusader cult image, a combination of the western Sedes Sapientiae idea with an Eastern throne type and the Byzantine Virgin and Child Hodegetria, a uniquely Levantine Maestà. The facts that, on the one hand, the visual source of the monumental rounded throne is Eastern and, on the other, that the Mellon Madonna shows no particular links to the then current allegorical images of the Throne of Wisdom with lions and steps, as we see in Western European iconography at this time, are also important evidence for its Eastern Mediterranean context. The evidence that the Mellon Madonna has contemporary and later reflections in Byzantine art—not to mention Italian painting—only adds to the richness and dynamism of the Levantine context and the artistic interchange that it was part of in the last third of the thirteenth century.

This attempt to interpret aspects of the meaning and context of these two images still leaves us with important questions unanswered. How did they function? Where and when were they produced? By way of conclusion, I will offer some comments on these issues.

I have argued elsewhere that these two panels were used as icons, albeit in quite different circumstances. The Kahn Madonna is clearly understandable as an icon in function, in view of the strong Byzantine tradition it embodies in style and iconography, with its frame intact and its rectangular shape. As an icon it must have been very large and very important. The question is, How exactly might it have been used? If its patron were a Crusader ecclesiastic, but its recipient were Orthodox—either a layman or a cleric—and it was intended for use in the context of the Orthodox rite, it could have been an individual, self-contained holy image for an icon stand (proskynetarion) in front of the iconostasis, or for use in a special chapel. If its patron and its recipient were both Crusaders, it was presumably intended for use in the context of the Latin rite; in that case, it could have been hung or placed above or behind a major altar, or behind the bishops cathedra. Evidence for such use in a Latin rite church is found in the accounts of certain pilgrims to Jerusalem in the late twelfth century. For example, Theodorich, a German pilgrim to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in the 1170s, records the following: "Behind [the Principal Altar] is placed the Patriarch's throne, and over it is a great and venerable icon of our Lady, that hangs with an icon of . . . John the Baptist, and a third icon of . . . Gabriel from the arches of the sanctuary."

The case of the Mellon Madonna is somewhat different. In consideration of its strong composite character and smaller configuration—half the size of the Kahn Madonna—it seems likely to have been commissioned by a Crusader ecclesiastical patron for a Frankish recipient. The possibility exists that the royal iconography of the Throne of Solomon/Sedes Sapientiae and the Virgin Hodegetria may have been chosen and combined because it was intended for a royal or courtly recipient, but this and whether its use was expected to be private or public remain to be investigated further. Nonetheless, it is at least possible, indeed maybe even probable, that it was intended for use as a kind of icon-altarpiece in the circumstances of a private royal chapel.

The final resolution of the validity of this interpretation for the function of the Mellon Madonna is a task for the future, but there is one additional point to be made about the function of this impressive work: whatever its specific location was intended to be, it seems likely that the painting was meant to be seen by both Latin Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. I interpret the eclectic nature of the work, stylistically and iconographically, to reflect to some extent its intended audience in the cultural setting of the Crusader East. Thus, the image of the Virgin Hodegetria would be especially recognizable and meaningful to an Eastern Orthodox worshipper, and the Gothic red and blue colorism of the Virgin's garments, along with the magnificent Throne of Solomon, would "speak" directly to a Crusader of Western background. In this image, East and West are combined, and the image in its Crusader setting is meant to speak a visual language that reaches out to both Latin and Oriental Christians.

This is not the forum to discuss in any detail the controversial problems of dating and localizing these works. Permit me therefore simply to propose the following: In the case of the Kahn Madonna, I agree with the close association that Demus argued in relating the style of the Virgin in the Deësis mosaic from the south gallery of the church of Haghia Sophia to the Kahn Madonna. On the basis of this relationship, we can interpret the Kahn Madonna to be a work of around the 1250s to no later than 1261 in the Latin Empire of Constantinople. The Mellon Madonna is a much more difficult problem. Based on works it can be compared with, however, I suggest that it must date some time after the Kahn Madonna, that is, no earlier than 1261 and certainly no later than the Rucellai Madonna of Duccio, a work that it may have influenced, that is, 1285. Determination of its place of origin will help us to refine this dating more precisely. In order to suggest where I think it most likely was painted, let me simply do what Demus did and introduce a comparative work that seems to share certain important characteristics with the Mellon Madonna.

St. Nicholas worshipped by members of the Ravendal Family. St. Nicholas with Ravendal Family, Donors, Flanked by Scenes of the Life of the Saint. Panel painting (2.03 x 1.58 m). (Courtesy of the Byzantine Museum, Archbishop Makarios III Foundation, Nicosia, Cyprus.)

There is in the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia a large and beautiful panel painting, an altarpiece, of St. Nicholas probably done there shortly before 1291. It seems to me that these panel paintings share several important features: both are composite Crusader works combining Byzantine and Crusader style and iconography. Note the high-quality Byzantine style and technique of the monumental figure of St. Nicholas—including the extensive use of chrysography over the garments; note the Crusader style in terms of the Gothic palette of red and blue colors and the diminutive figures surrounding the saint. In terms of Byzantine iconography, note the Greek blessing gesture and the liturgical robes of St. Nicholas, whereas Crusader iconography is most obvious in the donor figures of the knight with wife and child, and his horse and shield, at the feet of the saint. On the bases of comparanda like this, I believe a case can be made that the Mellon Madonna was originally painted in Cyprus, possibly in Nicosia between 1261 and 1285.

Finally, one additional point is relevant to this possible attribution. Given the impressive quality of the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas and the memorable impact they have had on people apparently since they were first painted, it is not surprising that these cult images have obviously been prized and protected over the years. Now that their fictious Spanish provenance has been discarded—it used to be said that they came from Calahorra in northern Spain—we may wonder anew where they were safeguarded from the thirteenth century until the time they came on the international art market in Madrid just before the First World War. In light of recent events in which certain works of art from Cyprus in the thirteenth century have come to the attention of the art market and art historians in the 1980s and 1990s, some as illegal exports—I am thinking of the fresco paintings from Lysi, or certain beautiful icons from Moutoullas or Pedoulas—Cyprus would hardly be a surprising location for the Kahn and/or the Mellon Madonna to have resided. In any case, these Madonnas rank among the most mysterious of extant medieval paintings, and elusive and subtle as they are, they continue to yield their secrets only very slowly.