Saint Yrieix, whose skull was once contained in this reliquary, was the sixth-century founder of a monastery in the town south of Limoges that now bears his name. A special veneration of reliquaries in the form of the heads of local saints developed in the Limoges region during the Middle Ages, a devotion that continues to the present day. On feast days the image would have been carried in procession through the streets and then placed on the altar for veneration by the faithful.
The silver image originally covered a wooden core, which is exhibited nearby. Though carefully carved, it was not originally intended to be seen, but to give shape to and to provide support for the precious metal sheathing. Once the skull was set in place this wooden core, though sensitively carved, would have been completely obscured by sheets of silver. The precious material evoked the saint’s heavenly countenance, while the skull imparted a sense of his abiding authority.
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Wooden core
Wooden core
Wooden core
Wooden core
Wooden core
Artwork Details
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Title:Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieix
Date:ca. 1220–40, with later grill
Geography:Made in Limoges, France
Culture:French
Medium:Silver and gilded silver with rock crystal, gems, and glass
Dimensions:Overall (Reliquary): 15 x 9 3/16 x 10 1/4 in. (38.1 x 23.4 x 26.1 cm) Other (Wooden core): 14 7/16 x 8 7/8 x 9 13/16 in. (36.6 x 22.5 x 24.9 cm)
Classification:Metalwork-Silver
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Object Number:17.190.352a, b
From the Church of Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche (Haute-Vienne), near Limoges; [ Duveen Brothers, London (sold 1907)]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (by 1907–1917)
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Texier, Abbé Jacques-Rémi. "Les ostensoirs en Limousin." Annales Archéologiques 15 (1855). p. 294.
Texier, Abbé Jacques-Rémi. Dictionnaire d'orfévrerie, de gravure et de ciselure chrétiennes: Ou, de la mise en oeuvre artistique des métaux, des émaux et des pierreries. Encyclopédie Théologique 129. Paris: Jacques-Paul Migne, 1857. column 292.
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Montault, Barbier de. "Le trésor de l'église paroissiale de Saint-Yrieix." Bulletin de la Société Scientifique, Historique et Archéologique de la Corrèze (1892). pp. 115–25, Image on unnumbered plate inserted between pp. 116–17.
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Bolton, Andrew, ed. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Vol. 2. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. pp. 300, 312.
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