The Adoration of the Magi (detail), about 1480–90, Georges Trubert. Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold and silver paint, and ink on parchment. The J. Paul Getty Museum
Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art
GETTY CENTER
North Pavilion, Plaza Level
This is a past event
Early medieval legends reported that one of the three kings who paid homage to the newborn Christ Child in Bethlehem was from Africa. But it would be nearly one thousand years before artists began representing Balthazar, the youngest of the magi, as a Black African. This exhibition explores the juxtaposition of a seemingly positive image with the painful histories of Afro-European contact, particularly the brutal enslavement of African peoples.