This chasse served as a container for saints’ relics—often bones or pieces of cloth. The chasse depicts Christ in Majesty surrounded by saints on the lower front and the Lamb of God, emblematic of Jesus, flanked by angels on the sloping roof. Access to the sacred contents was through the locked door on one end. It shows Saint Peter, called by Jesus to be the keeper of the keys of heaven, as the guardian of the box’s holy relics.
Note the wonderfully varied designs of the columns and the saints’ haloes, the exceptional translucent red, the scrolling pattern of the gilded ground, and the blue enamel that defines hair, brows, digits, and sinews. The design of the back simulates a costly silk textile.
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This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Proper left end, beardless saint holding a book.
Proper right end, Saint Peter holding keys to kingdom of Heaven.
View #2: reverse, overall pattern of quatrefoils enclosed in roundels.
View #1: principal face, 3/4 view
View #3: proper right end, Saint Peter holding keys to kingdom of Heaven.
View #4: proper left end, beardless saint holding a book.
Artwork Details
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Title:Chasse with Christ in Majesty and the Lamb of God
Date:ca. 1180–90
Geography:Made in Limoges, France
Culture:French
Medium:Champlevé enamel: blue-black; dark, medium, and light blue; turquoise, dark and light green, yellow, red, translucent wine red, and white; wood core, painted red on exterior; copper: engraved, scraped, stippled, and gilt.
Dimensions:Overall: 8 11/16 x 9 1/4 x 4 3/16 in. (22 x 23.5 x 10.7 cm)
Classification:Enamels-Champlevé
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number:17.190.523
Inscription: Inscription: A/w (Alpha/omega, twice, surrounding Christ and the Lamb).
[ Frédéric Spitzer (Austrian)(d. 1890), Paris (sold 1893)]; [ Adolph Fröschels, Paris (from 1893)]; Georges Hoentschel (French)(sold 1911); Jacques SeligmannParis and New York (as agent for Morgan); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (1912
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "The Pierpont Morgan Treasures. Loan exhibition in honor of the Junius Spencer Morgan Memorial," November 10, 1960–December 18, 1960.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The Middle Ages: Treasures from The Cloisters and The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 18, 1970–March 29, 1970.
Chicago. Art Institute of Chicago. "The Middle Ages: Treasures from The Cloisters and The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 16, 1970–July 5, 1970.
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. "Dekorativno-Prikladnoe Iskusstvo ot Pozdnei Antichnosti do Pozdnei Gotiki," June–December 1989.
State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. "Dekorativno-Prikladnoe Iskusstvo ot Pozdnei Antichnosti do Pozdnei Gotiki," February–July 1990.
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "L'Oeuvre de Limoges," October 23, 1995–January 22, 1996.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Enamels of Limoges, 1100-1350," January 22–June 16, 1996.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven," September 26, 2016–January 8, 2017.
Hartford, Conn. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "Morgan: Mind of the Collector," September 23–December 31, 2017.
Darcel, Alfred, and Emile Molinier, ed. Exposition rétrospective de l'art française au Trocadéro. Exposition universelle de 1889. Lille: L. Danel, 1889. no. 472, p. 76.
Rupin, Ernest. L'Oeuvre de Limoges. Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1890. p. 423.
La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité, Moyen-Age, Renaissance. Vol. I. Mâcon: Imprimerie Protat Frères, 1890–1891. Orfèvrerie religieuse 20, p. 94.
Spitzer, Frédéric, ed. La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité -- Moyen-Age -- Renaissance. Vol. 1. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1890–1893. Orfèvrerie religieuse 20, p. 103, pl. VIII.
Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité: antiques, du moyen-âge & de la renaissance: composant l'importante et précieuse Collection Spitzer. Vol. 1. Paris: Chevallier and Mannheim, April 17–June 16, 1893. no. 231, p. 41, pl. VII.
Marquet de Vasselot, Jean-Joseph. "Les émaux limousins à fond vermiculé (XIIe et XIIIe siècles)." Revue Archéologique, 4th ser., 6 (July–December 1905). p. 239.
Marquet de Vasselot, Jean-Joseph. Les émaux limousins à fond vermiculé (XIIe et XIIIe siècles). Paris: E. Leroux, 1906. p. 24.
Pératé, André. Collections Georges Hoentschel: Émaux du XIIe au XVe siècle. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1911. no. 48, fig. XXII.
"J. P. Morgan to Bring Hoentschel Treasures Here." The New York Times (February 11, 1912). p. 13, ill.
Rubenstein, Stella. "Some Limoges Reliquaries of the Late Twelfth Century." Arts & Decoration 7 (April 1917). p. 305, ill. p. 304.
Braun, Joseph. Die Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes und ihre Entwicklung. Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 1940. p. 166, pl. 26, fig. 86.
Forsyth, William H. "Mediaeval Enamels in a New Installation." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 4, no. 9 (May 1946). ill. p. 238.
Cunningham, C. C., ed. The Pierpont Morgan Treasures: Loan Exhibition in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Junius Spencer Morgan Memorial. Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1960. no. 12, p. 9.
Gauthier, Marie-Madeleine. "Une Châsse limousine du dernier quart du XIIe siècle: Thèmes iconographiques composition et essai de chronologie." In Mélanges offerts à René Crozet... à l'occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire par ses amis, ses collèques, ses élèves et les membres du C.É.S.C.M., edited by Pierre Gallais, and Yves-Jean Riou. Vol. 2. Poitiers: Société d'études médiévales, 1966. no. C39, p. 951.
Gauthier, Marie-Madeleine. "Le goût Plantagenet." In Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes: Volume 1, Epochen europäischer Kunst. International Congress of the History of Art, Vol. 21. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1967. pp. 151, 153, pl. 17.2.
Ostoia, Vera K. The Middle Ages: Treasures from the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1969. no. 53, pp. 118–119, 256–257.
Gauthier, Marie-Madeleine. Émaux Méridionaux: Catalogue International de l'Oeuvre de Limoges; L'Époque Romane. Corpus des émaux méridionaux, Vol. I. Paris: Editions du centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1987. no. 150, p. 147, pl. CXLI, ill. 514–516; pl. CXLIII, ill. 520.
Pushkin Museum and State Hermitage Museum. Dekorativno-Prikladnoe Iskusstvo ot Pozdnei Antichnosti do Pozdnei Gotiki: Kratkii Katalog Vystavki. Moscow: Pushkin Museum, 1990. no. 19, p. 10.
State Hermitage Museum. Dekorativno-Prikladnoe Iskusstvo ot Pozdnei Antichnosti do Pozdnei Gotiki. St. Petersburg: State Hermitage Museum, 1990. no. 19, pp. 46–47.
Taburet-Delahaye, Elisabeth, and Barbara Drake Boehm, ed. L'Oeuvre de Limoges: Emaux limousins du Moyen Age. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1995. no. 27, pp. 134–135.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, and Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, ed. Enamels of Limoges, 1100-1350. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996. no. 27, pp. 134–35.
Smith, Elizabeth Bradford, ed. Medieval Art in America: Patterns of Collecting, 1800–1940. University Park, Pa.: Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, 1996. p. 64.
Boehm, Barbara Drake. "Le goût des Américains pour l'Œuvre de Limoges aux XIXe et XXe siècles." In L’Œuvre de Limoges et sa diffusion: Trésors, objets, collections, edited by Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, and Frédéric Tixier. Paris: Institut national d'histoire de l'art, 2011. p. 127, fig. 6, pl. X.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, and Melanie Holcomb, ed. Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 143, pp. 288, 289.
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