Object details
Object number
M27w42
Creator(s)
French, Limoges
Title
Reliquary Casket
Date
about 1200-1250
Medium
Champlevé enamel on copper with semi-precious stones
Dimensions
16.5 x 13.5 x 8 cm (6 1/2 x 5 5/16 x 3 1/8 in.)
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the antique dealer Theodor Einstein & Co., Munich on 16 August 1897 for 1230 marks through her husband, John L. Gardner, Jr. (1837–1898).
Commentary
Created in the Middle Ages for important ecclesiastical and royal patrons, the colorful enamels of Limoges, France were renowned throughout Europe. Four figures of saints decorate the front of this reliquary casket which would house the relics (fragments of bone, skin, or hair) of a holy person. Isabella purchased it in 1897 when she and her husband Jack were visiting Munich, Germany. She placed it with other liturgical items in the Ecclesiastical Case in the Long Gallery.
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 240.
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 8, no. 8 (25 Oct. 1964), p. 2.
Nathaniel Silver and Diana Seave Greenwald. Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Life (Boston, 2022), pp. 99-101, fig. 51.
Gallery
Long Gallery
Case
Ecclesiastical Case
Rights and reproductions
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