Lot Essay
Nothing in the New Testament account of the story of the Magi, which is only found in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, so much as hints at the possibility that one of their number was black. Indeed, the biblical text does not even specify their number. However, once it had become standard practice to assume there were three of them, it must have followed quite naturally for artists to differentiate them according to age and race. They were consequently associated with the three continents of the known world, and the African Magus - or, as here, King - was represented as a black. They also acquired names - Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior - and the black Magus was identified with Balthasar. By the time of the present piece, America had long been discovered, but this had no effect on the number of the Magi or their iconography.