Stolen after the suicide of Ethiopian Emperor Theodorus II, his people's sacred icon representing Jesus Christ painted around 1520 by a European artist has been rediscovered in Portugal, according to the Art Newspaper.
Ethiopian Emperors venerated the icon during many centuries and took it in each of their military battles while nobles had to swear allegiance before it. This work, called the Kwer'ata Re'esu was therefore an extraordinary symbol.
After the defeat of the Ethiopians against the British expeditionary corps in 1868 it had been stolen by the representative of the British Museum Sir Richard Holmes who never disclosed his crime during his lifetime. The Kwer'ata Re'esu, purchased in London in 1950, is now the property of a Portuguese collector who wishes to remain anonymous. The painting, measuring 33 x 25 cm, shows Jesus Christ looking downward, his forefront bleeding from the wounds of his martyr's crown and his palms raised. He is being represented at the end of his trial before his crucifixion.
This work was believed to have painted either by a Flemish or a Portuguese artist and bore an inscription in ge'ez, the old language of the Ethiopian Church, added during the early 17th Century.
The painting is well preserved despite the fact that it was carried many times on battle fields, that it escaped fire and was stolen by the Sudanese Muslims during the 18th Century.
Sir Richard Holmes stole it after the battle of Magdala on April 13th 1868 in the palace of Theodorus who had just committed suicide after his defeat. The Kwer'ata Re'esu was a sacred icon for all Ethiopian emperors who took it with them whenever they went to fight a battle. In 1744, after a battle in Sudan, the Muslims seized it and returned it against a ransom. The precious icon was venerated by all Ethiopians and copied extensively throughout the country.
In 1862, Theodorus sought the support of Britain to stave off a Turkish threat but Queen Victoria ignored his appeal. |  The emperor retaliated in keeping the British consul and several Europeans as prisoners. After negotiations for their release failed the British sent to Ethiopia an expeditionary corps under Lord Napier which defeated the Ethiopian army.
Sir Richard Holmes, who was in charge of gathering antiquities and manuscripts for the British Museum, found the Kwer'ata Re'esu in the bedroom of the emperor but never reported that he had entered in possession of this treasure.
He took back to London many pieces of antiquities as well as the gold crown and calice of the emperor and entrusted the British Museum with these pieces but kept the Kwer'ata Re'esu for himself.
Yohannes IV, who succeeded Theodorus, wrote to Queen
Victoria in 1872 to inform her about the disappearance of the icon but the Foreign Office replied that there was no trace of it in London.
Sir Richard Holmes died in 1911 and the painting surfaced back six years later in a sale at Christie's. The vendor was Lady Evelyn his widow and the icon was sold for £ 420 to Martin Reid of Wimbledon, according to the Art Newspaper.
J.W Reid, the heir of the latter, sold the work, described as
A man of Sorrows by Adriaen Isenbrandt on February 17th 1950 again at Christie's but no mention of its historical importance was made then. A curator of the Royal Library however alerted the Ethiopian authorities at the time of the sale but the government of Addis Ababa did not react at once.
The painting was however unsold at £ 131 but was thereafter the object of a private sale for £ 300 in favour of a Portuguese buyer, art historian Luis Reis Santos who had written an article on the Kwer'ata Re'esu in a 1941 edition of the Burlington magazine. The British then tried in vain to buy the painting back to return it to the Ethiopians while Luis Reis Santos approached the Portuguese government in 1965 offering to sell it so that Lisbon could offer it to Emperor Haile Selassie during a State visit but Portuguese authorities turned his proposal down presumably because the price he was asking was too high. The rediscovery of the Kwer'ata Re'esu, which has been strongly linked to the history of Ethiopia, might now prompt Ethiopian authorities to claim for its return.
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