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Relief (fragment; appliqué); Reliquary of the True Cross (known as Reliquary of saint Veronica; Reliquaire de sainte Véronique; Reliquaire de la Vraie-Croix) (Front)

Relief (fragment; appliqué); Reliquary of the True Cross (known as Reliquary of saint Veronica; Reliquaire de sainte Véronique; Reliquaire de la Vraie-Croix) (Front)
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Back

Side

Subject
Religious.

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Château-Ponsac (Haute-Vienne), Treasury of the parish church of Saint-Thyrse (formerly Balledent church)

S/n

Ivory;wood (core), copper, filigree, gems and enamel (reliquary)

Height: 38mm
Width: 28mm (ivory only)

Face of the Virgin.

Gaborit-Chopin 1978: Paris, c. 1260-1270.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003: Paris, 3rd quarter of the 13th century. Same atelier as OA 10901 and OA 2596, in the Musée du Louvre.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
On the back, quatrefoil-shaped embossed plaques show the Symbols of the Evangelists (the lion of saint Mark; the calf of saint Luke, the angel of saint Matthew; the eagle of saint John is missing), in the centre features Christ in glory.

Object Condition
Missing: lower gem (replaced with red wax.
On the back, missing the quatrefoil upper plaque where the eagle of saint John must have featured; four gems missing around the ivory; the ivory panel used as a door seems to replace an earlier element now missing (possibly a rock crystal).

Comments
The ivory fragment has been enclosed in a quatrefoil-shaped reliquary. Each lobe has a rock crystal and, in the centre, the ivory panel is hinged and acts as a small door opening onto a cross-shaped receptacle intended for a relic (now missing). The ivory is framed with a row of gems. The foot of the reliquary is decorated with foliated scrolls and four enamel champlevé medallions featuring an eagle.

Provenance
Treasury of Grandmont abbey (mentioned in the 1495 inventory). Church of Balledent; Treasury of Château-Ponsac.

Bibliography
J. R. Texier, Dictionnaire d'orfèvrerie, de gravure et de ciselure chrétienne (Paris, 1857), p. 1494, no. 5.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, in Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1976).
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. and fig. 211.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), fig. 98b.
Palissy database: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/dapapal_fr [accessed September 2012]


Image

© RÉGION LIMOUSIN, Service de l'inventaire et du patrimoine culturel. Philippe Rivière. 1995.

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