Meyer Mati. An Obscure Portrait: Imaging Women's Reality in Byzantine Art

Pindar Press, 2009. — 571 p.Recent discussions on Byzantine art have been dominated by the question of representing realia . Among these, however, the way works of art reflect the daily life of women have not received much space or attention. The present book studies various images representing women's status and her performative tasks, and their significance from the fourth century to the fall of the Empire, through analysis of archaeological evidence and works of art. It addresses a wide range of questions, some pertaining both to pictorial traditions and to their late antique antecedents, others peculiar to changing and evolving Byzantine culture and mentality.