Painting on cotton depicting a bearded Orthodox priest with a fly whisk, 'yahanib tchar', reading a holy book. The priest wears a white cotton 'shamma' edged with red.
The artist has depicted the priest deep in thought, reading a holy book. The book is shown to contain occasional red writing and illustrates the Ethiopian tradition of writing sacred names in red ink. Bibles, psalters and religious texts were traditionally handwritten in parchment books, in narrow columns in black ink. Key sacred names, such as those of God, Jesus, Mary and saints, are written in red ink.
