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French 12th Century

2 works

A cup carved from stone is mounted in gold fittings to create a jeweled chalice with handles that curl up each side and a tall, flaring foot below. The stone of the cup is swirled with shell pink and rust brown, and carved to create vertical ridges. The gold rim around the lip flares outward and is set with a band of alternating pairs of small, white pearls and mostly garnet-red stones, though one stone to our right is a muted blue. In this photograph, the handles curve up each side from the base of the stone cup to the gold lip, where the handle divides into two scrolling tendrils on either side of a teardrop shaped center, like curling petals. The base and foot are as tall as the stone cup and gold lip. A knob-like form just below the stone cup is set with deep red and jade green stones around its center, and rows of small pearls around the narrow top and bottom of the knob. The knob is chased to create a pattern of scrolling vines, like tracery. The flaring foot below is also chased with the same pattern, surrounding gold, oval medallions set at regular intervals in the foot. In our view, the medallion to the left shows a bunch of grapes and the center is a portrait of a bearded man with a halo, holding his right hand up with his first two fingers raised. The details on the medallion to our right are difficult to make out but it could be a sheaf of wheat. Small, round jewels are set above and below each medallion, and between each one.

Chalice of the Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis

French 12th Century

A free-standing, gold, enameled, rectangular box has a triangular top like the roof of a house, and the box rests on a short, square foot in each corner. In this photograph, we look onto one long side and the short side to our right is angled toward us, so we see the panel there, too. Along the long side, five people are shown from the waist up in the upper, roof-like panel and six more line up on the panel below. The skin of every person is gold, and all wear robes and garments in lapis or sky blue, spring green, yellow, and white. The area around the people is also gold, and each panel is encased by a royal-blue band dotted with stylized stars at regular intervals. Each panel is then lined with small, button-like rounded bosses around its edges. In the upper panel, all of the men except the second from the right have beards, and all have halos with wavy bands of blue, green, yellow, and white. The man to our left holds a book and his neighbor a skeleton key the length of his arm. The man at the center holds up a book with his left hand, on our right, and raises the index and middle fingers of his other hand, held up at shoulder height. The two men to our right also hold books. In the panel below, three horses’ heads peek in from the left edge, creating a vertical band, and three crowned men line up, holding gold vessels and looking toward a woman seated in a throne with a child on her lap. The woman has a halo made with a wavy pattern of blue, yellow, green, black, and white. Her throne is flanked by columns, and the area around it is edged with bands of white, light, and dark blue. The baby wears gold, has a halo, holds a book in his lap with his left hand, and raises the first two fingers of his other hand toward the three men. The final person in this panel wears a hat, holds a scepter topped with a fleur-de-lis, and gestures at the woman and baby. The head and shoulders of a haloed person is visible along the short side of the box, which is angled sharply away from us. The gold between all the people and bordering each panel is intricately carved with tiny flowing organic lines and swirls.

Reliquary Châsse

French 12th Century