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Reliquary of the True Cross; including openwork panels (plaques ajourées) (Detail, front)

Reliquary of the True Cross; including openwork panels (plaques ajourées) (Detail, front)
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Front

Detail, front

Detail, front

Detail, front

Detail, front

Front

Back

Subject
Religious. Infancy of Christ. Life of the Virgin.

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Pradelles, parish church

S/n

Ivory;gilt silver, crystal, painted parchment

Height: 100mm (diameter)
Depth: 12mm

Register 1: Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit. Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers; God the Father. 
Register 2: Three Holy Women at the Tomb, with angel seated on the tomb and three soldiers asleep, conflated with Resurrection. Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin; angel holding a navette and swinging a censer.
Painted parchment: Evangelist symbols with scrolls bearing their names: angel of saint Matthew, eagle of saint John, calf of saint Luke and lion of saint Mark.
Inscriptions on the parchment: 'Johannes', 'Matheus', 'Lucas', Marcus', 'ave gratia', 'INHI'.
Later inscriptions identifying the relics: 'Ex Sto Ligno Crucis' ('from the holy wood of the Cross'; upper part of the vertical arm of the cross); 'S. Colum[na] D.N.J.C' ('from the Column [of the Flagellation]'; to the left); 'S. Purp[urea chlamys] A.N.J.C. 1841' ('from the purple cloak of Our Lord Jesus Christ'; in the lower part of the vertical arm of the cross).

Gaborit-Chopin 2003: France (Paris?), c. 1400-1420.
Paris 2004: Paris, c. 1400-1420.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Metal casing with foliated poinçonné decoration and small cruciform door.

Object Condition
Restored in the 19th century.

Comments
The metalwork and the painted parchment are contemporary with the ivory carvings. Modern phylacteries (dated 1841) identify the relics contained therein.

Provenance
Discovered in 1999 in an 18th-century monstrance.

Bibliography
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), p. 506.
Paris 1400. Les Arts sous Charles VI, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2004, no. 124.
Palissy database: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/dapapal_fr [accessed September 2009]
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, pp. 610-11, in relation to no. 188


Image

© Réunion des musées nationaux. Photography: Christiane Besson-Benoît.This photograph is copyright protected. Any reproduction or representation of this image is strictly limited to private use. Any other use requires the prior authorisation of the

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