The Khakhuli Triptych and the Art of Repurposing

This paper examines the Khakhuli Triptych, one of the most significant works of Georgian medieval art, and explores the practice and meaning of repurposing in the medieval world. Commissioned by King Davit Aghmashenebeli (r. 1089–1125), the enormous golden triptych (147 × 202 cm), now housed in the Tbilisi Museum of Fine Arts, embodies the cultural and political ambitions of Georgia’s so-called “Golden Age.” Lavishly adorned with over one hundred enamel pieces - many of which originated from Byzantine book covers, reliquaries, and crowns - as well as precious stones and repoussé decoration, the triptych exemplifies a complex assemblage of materials. These repurposed enamel pieces, dating from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, were incorporated into the twelfth-century frame of a tenth-century icon of the Virgin and later relocated from the Khakhuli Monastery to the Gelati Monastery, founded by King Davit himself. While a rich body of scholarship exists on the Khakhuli Triptych, little work has been dedicated to the triptych’s socio-political context. Scholars have mainly focused on issues of style, provenance, and date. A main focus has been the attribution of the triptych’s enamels to either Byzantine or Georgian centers of production. Repurposing, the focus of this paper, deals with the ideological reutilization of an object in a new geographic and cultural context. In the Khakhuli case, the majority of the objects that were repurposed have also changed their previous function. Accordingly, I prioritize the current function of the objects on the triptych over their original use and, by extension, emphasize circulation over production. In this way, I aim to highlight the ways in which the repurposing of objects, obtained across borders through artistic/diplomatic exchange, makes relationships and shared spaces essential to medieval art.