Over the last millennium Ethiopian artists – many of them clerics – have produced a unique and prolific body of church murals, manuscript paintings and panel paintings on wood. Secular artists have recently translated this style of religious work. Metalworkers – working in iron, nickel, silver and gold – have created the beautiful crosses of Ethiopia. Over 200 styles of crosses represent the individuality of significant church centres, particular saints, and of course the craftsmen themselves.

There are easily recognisable cross styles – the Axum Cross, the Lalibela Cross and the Gonder Cross; others seem just beautifully intricate. Crosses come as pendants, hand crosses and processional crosses. Our paintings come on goat skin, on carved wood, and as part of wooden icons with multiple doors. St George and the dragon almost invariably appear on the wooden icons, as Ethiopia claims his Patronage.