Hidden Histories Tour - Balthasar and the Journey of the Magi

The Gospel of Matthew speaks of wise men, or ‘Magi’, travelling from the East, following a star in search of the newborn Christ, king of the Jews. In Western Europe by tradition these travellers are commonly identified as, Melchoir, Caspar, and Balthazar. From around the 400s CE, the youngest of the Magi, often identified as Balthazar, came to be associated with an African origin. 

However, it would not be until a millennia later, that European artists began to depict Balthazar as a young black African king. 

Join curator Edward Johnson in his exploration of how and why Medieval Europe’s evolving world view transformed the iconography of the three magi, and how images of the black African king Balthazar proliferated throughout Medieval Europe.