500 Year-Old Chinese Painting of Madonna and Child

[sjcma]

From the Chicago Tribune: Field Museum's Chinese scroll of Madonna and Child shows Christianity's spread

The interesting thing about this scroll is that it was painted before the Jesuit missions to China.

[Dragonbones]

The interesting thing about this scroll is that it was painted before the Jesuit missions to China.

Allegedly. Not that the timing is implausible, given that there were Christians in China much earlier than the Jesuits. But personally, I prefer to be skeptical about signatures of famous painters on Chinese paintings. The vast majority are forgeries. I'd also want to see a comparison to Tang Yin's style and known subject matter, an in-depth look at his exposure (if any) to Christianity, and a chemical analysis of the materials.

Still, an interesting story.

[Mucha Man]

Which child is she with: Lourdes, David or Rocco?

[urodacus]

It's an early publicity poster for "Like a Virgin". On the back, in the lower left corner, you can still see the Time Warner sticker, and what looks like a phone number of their agent in Shanghai.

I'm kidding, it probably says Made in Hong Kong. Not much evidence to disprove that it's anything but just another stunning Chinese forgery.

[Screaming Jesus]

Anybody read Martin Palmer's book "The Jesus Sutras"? (Various Chinese-language Nestorian scriptures, see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Sutras for an explanation.) That stuff is almost a thousand years earlier.

Is the point of all this hoopla over the Madonna scroll, that *Roman Catholicism* was in China before the Jesuits?

Anyway, on that I'd be inclined to defer to the chemists and materials historians. 'Cause we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.