This sketch shows the first reconstruction that Albert Friend, Glanville Downey, and Paul Underwood attempted for a case study on the dome of the Nea Ekklesia, the lost church founded by emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) in the great imperial palace in Constantinople. Their approach, which they also applied later to the Holy Apostles, was to combine textual sources and comparative visual material. Here, Friend notes a sermon by the ninth-century patriarch Photios as a textual reference. Downey translated the text, which then served as the source for the dome reconstruction by Underwood (see here). The notes surrounding the drawing indicate the color and a series of iconographic models for the mosaic reconstruction.
More Exhibit Items
Sketch from a notebook by Albert M. Friend. MS.BZ.019-03-01-054.
Notes and sketches from a notebook by Albert M. Friend, Spring 1948. MS.BZ.019-03-02-066.
Sketch from a notebook by Albert M. Friend. MS.BZ.019-03-02-063.
Photograph from Albert M. Friend’s research material. MS.BZ.019-03-01-049.
Reproduction of a preparatory sketch by Paul A. Underwood. MS.BZ.019-03-01-057.