This Fontanini 12 Inch Scale King Melchior
is made of a durable polymer that resists chips and breaks. Figure made in Italy. This piece is a wonderful addition to your Nativity Scene collection. King Melchior stands in a pale antiqued sky blue robe with navy and gold trim and belt. Melchior wears a regal scarlet chlamys over his shoulder. The lining is fur. Upon his head he wears a golden crown with blue detail. He holds a matching chest full of gold for baby Jesus.
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Melchior
Legend tells us that Melchior, the king of Arabia and India at the time of Christ’s birth, was a small, gentle, elderly man with venerable ways. King Melchior has the distinction of being the eldest of the three wise men visiting the Christ Child and his figure is always given the honor of being placed first before the others at the baby’s crib.
Indeed, Melchior’s appearance substantiated his position: his beard was long and white, in dramatic contrast to the crimson robes that were his signature color. But this wise man wasn’t just a learned head-of-state with wealth and regal garments. He was also a patron of the arts with a soft spot in his heart for the harp. His greatest pleasure was said to have been listening to its beautiful notes hour after hour.
Like his esteemed traveling companions, Melchior was said to have waited a lifetime for a star to appear in the heavens. Once it did, there was no question but that he was destined to join the other two kings for a journey to Bethlehem where it was promised that the three would find, waiting in the holy city, the Messiah.
Each king brought a precious gift for the Child. Melchior carried a gold censer to the stable o the blessed day of Jesus’ birth. Scholars wrote that he also carried silks and precious stones to Bethlehem, and in one tale it is was written that Melchior literally rolled out these treasures before the crib of the infant.
This stately emperor was said to have lived to the age of 116 and to have had a wife and a child. His journey to the crib of the Christ Child completed a life-long dream that must have found him joyful beyond measure. For on the eighth day after visiting the birthplace of Jesus in the stable, Melchior said to have gone to the temple to pray and then peacefully died, his mission fulfilled.
As they had been in life, so were three wise men together at the time of the first one’s death. Legend tells us that Balthazar and Gaspar lovingly bore Melchior to his tomb on the day the eldest Magus died.