Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Queen of Sheba
  • Creator:
  • Description: The Queen of Sheba appears wearing a luxurious ermine-lined gown with bells hanging from the waist. In her left hand she holds the globus cruciger and in her right she holds a scepter. A golden bejeweled crown sits atop her long golden hair. While she currently has black skin, scholars have determined that her face and hands were darkened by a later artist. This image comes from the original manuscript of Konrad Kyeser's Bellifortis [Strong in War], a military treatise that includes other non-warfare-related technological instruction and also addresses natural magic. Scholars have not yet provided an explanation for an image of the Queen of Sheba in such a manuscript. By the twelfth century the Queen of Sheba was presented as a symbol of the Church traveling from the farthest reaches of the world to hear the Divine Wisdom of Solomon, who was presented as a Christ-like figure. To signify her far-away and exotic origins, the queen was sometimes shown as accompanied by a dark-skinned figure or at other times, as she is here, was depicted as a dark-skinned woman.
  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public Domain
  • Subject (See Also): African Women Blacks Queen of Sheba (Biblical Figure)
  • Geographic Area: Germany
  • Century: 15
  • Date: before 1405
  • Related Work:
  • Current Location: Göttigen, Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Ms. philos. 63, 122r.
  • Original Location:
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Manuscript Illuminations
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (parchment); Gold; Pigment
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): //
  • Inscription: Inscription (not shown): Sum regina sabbia clarior ceteris et venusta/Pulchra sum et casta stat speculum pictore sculptum/In quo contemplantur juvenes quecumque volunt/Et in visu tacta sime retro sollis absconsa/Per aerem subito movet fuliginem ore/Ast
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