Giralte de Bruselas et al., The Main Retable at Oviedo Cathedral: Detail, Christ in Majesty
1512-31
Cathedral of St. Savior, Oviedo, Spain
The enthroned Christ is attended by the symbols of the four evangelists. For further examples of this arrangement, see this page on the Evangelists. Their names are inscribed on the symbols, though probably no one could make them out from below: the eagle of St. John, left above; the lion of St. Mark, left below; the angel of St. Matthew, right above; and the ox of St. Luke, right below. All of them are winged, as in the passage in Revelation 4:6-8 that gave rise to this particular symbolism.
In almost all images of this type Christ raises his right hand in blessing, as here. In his left hand this type of image usually puts a book, not a mappa mundi as here, although the latter symbol is found often in other iconographic types depicting Christ and/or the Father.
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Photographed at the cathedral by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.