Cl. 11982
Buckle: Holy Face of Christ (Sancta Facies); foliated decoration.
Pendant: saint Dominic with a cross, dog holding a flaming torch. Saint Catherine of Siena with the devil at her feet, a cross and a crown of thorns.
Crosshatched background.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of 15th century.
Fingerlin 1971: end of 15th century.
Detroit 1997 and Paris 2004: Northern France or Flanders, end of 15th century.
Museum's opinion 2010: Northern France or Flanders, end of 15th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy.
Reverse
Buckle: smooth and flat. Pendant carved on both sides.
Object Condition
Missing: two moulded ivory pieces; tang of the buckle.
Comments
This belt probably belonged to a Dominican nun or monk, judging from the choice of saints represented. The four simple moulded ivory pieces placed towards the middle of the belt were used as stops to adjust the length of the belt (two are missing, as there would originally have been six). This belt belongs to a group of about ten such surviving belts with ivory fittings. Old inscriptions on the buckle: 'O D COL' and on the pendant: 'N' (possibly owner's marks).
Provenance
Collection of Eugène Odiot, Paris: given by him to the museum on 5 May 1889.
Bibliography
C. Enlart, Le Costume. Manuel d'archéologie française depuis les temps mérovingiens jusqu'à la Renaissance française (Paris, 1916), III, p. 310.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 447; II, no. 1223.
I. Fingerlin, Gürtel des hohen und späten Mittelalters (Munich, 1971), no. 3643, pp. 100 and 425.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 77.
Spiegel der Seligkeit: Privates Bild und Frömmigkeit im Spätmittelalter, exhibition catalogue, Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2000, p. 22, fig. 19.
Soieries et autres textiles de l'Antiquité au XVIe siècle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée de Cluny-Musée national du Moyen Âge, 2004, no. 84.
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