The two most famous 16th-century rulers of the Byzantine Empire, Emperor Justinian I and his wife, Empress Theodora—while fascinating historical figures—are not hugely popular subjects in art.
The 19th-century Orientalist painter Benjamin Constant, however, painted both of them a number of times.
And they make for fabulously striking paintings.
In 1887, Constant—according to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes—painted the empress very much as she’s described in the Secret History: “a small, graceful woman with vivid and dazzling eyes.”
Furthermore, her clothing comes almost directly out of the famous mosaic that depicts her in the Basilica of San Vitale—and the circular back of her marble throne even evokes her halo.
The translation of her frontal pose and clear, even gaze into Constant’s verisimilar style gives the empress an astonishingly powerful presence, in spite of her diminutive size.
