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Oon more hier of stature þan x feete, blac of body, with houndis teeth, bisshop of that Oracle or praieng place, to vs appiered, of whom the earis perced and ouches and bies erin hangyng, and clad was with skynnes. Letter of Alexander to Aristotle
(Worcester F. 172, ll. 677-682) When earrings appear in western European artwork in the Late Middle Ages, earrings are a sign that the individual wearing them is not part of the norm -- the "other," to borrow the term from "Marked Difference: Earrings and 'The Other' in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Art" in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress -- often indicating that the person being depicted or described is meant to be Eastern or African. Note, for example, the use of earrings on scenes of the Adoration of the Magi. (Think of it as a sort of late medieval artistic shorthand for "exotic," rather than a depiction of something that followed the conventions of western European fashions at that time.)
Following are examples of earrings used as a artistic sign of an exotic or Oriental/Eastern/Asian character, rather than as a record of contemporary fashionable jewelry.
- The Erythraean Sibyl on The Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, 1432
- David plays music (fol. 13v),
Solomon (fol. 121v), and
Constantine I on the throne (fol. 127v), in an Ethiopian psalter (BNF Ethiopien d'Abbadie 105), c. 1468-1478
- Executioner in the Martyrdom of St. Barbara, c. 1470-1500
- Epiphany by Hieronymus Bosch, 1475-1480
- Detail from Nativity by Friedrich Herlin, 1488
- Balthasar in Adoration of the Magi by Marx Reichlich, 1489
- Balthasar in Adoration of the Magi, c. 1495-1505
- Adoration of the Magi, c. 1500
- Balthasar in Adoration of the Magi by Jörg Breu the Elder, 1501
- Adoration of the Magi by Vasco Fernandes, 1501-1506
- Balthasar in Adoration of the Magi, 1503
- Adoration of the Magi by Albrecht Dürer, 1504 (see detail)
- The baptism of St. Paul by Hans Holbein the Elder, 1504
- Balthasar in Adoration of the Magi, c. 1505-1515
- Adoration of the Magi by Juan de Flandes, c. 1508-1519
- Adoration of the Magi by Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1510 (detail from center panel)
- Christ Carrying the Cross by Hieronymus Bosch, 1515-1516
- The Adoration of the Magi by Quentin Metsys, 1526
- Adoration of the Magi by Joos van Cleve, 1526-1528
- Triptych with the Adoration of the Magi by Pieter Coecke van Aelst
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