This Melchior figure
is part of Fontanini’s 27” scale Masterpiece Collection. Figure made of a marble based resin. Perfect for your church or institution nativity decoration. Melchior stands before Jesus in a scarlet red Tunic with a blue and gold belt tied around his waist. He wears a burgundy cape with gold lining and a white fur shawl around his shoulders. He has a gold crown atop his head and a blue necklace hanging around his neck. In his hands he holds a golden chest filled with gold on top of a sky blue pillow.
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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.
