Images: Web Gallery of Art; Kornbluth Photography; Index of Medieval Art
Clavis number: ECMA 142
Other descriptors: none
Location: Musées Royaux des Arts et d’Histoire, Brussels
Inventory number: 1580
Category: reliquaries
Related literature: Apostolic Histories
Featured characters and locations: Simon (the Canaanite/Zealot), Judas (not Iscariot, apostle), Paul (apostle), Peter (apostle), James (son of Zebedee), John (son of Zebedee), Andrew (apostle), Philip (apostle), Bartholomew (apostle), Matthew (apostle), Thomas (apostle), James (the Righteous).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: gilt and enamelled copper and bronze in wood
Size: 10 × 27.5 × 17 cm
Images: the top of the altar has a crystal altar stone in the center over an enclosed relic; this is surrounded with four vignettes featuring representations of Ecclesia and Synagogue, and images of Samson carrying the gates of Gaza and Jonah and the Whale. Outside of this central section are scenes from Hebrew Scripture (offerings of Melchizedek and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, and Moses with the bronze serpent), and images of the Passion of Jesus run along the bottom. Around the sides are images of the martyrdoms of the apostles (all identified) drawn, likely, from the Apostolic Histories collection of apocryphal acts. The corners of the altar feature figures of the four evangelists.
Date: ca. 1160 CE
Provenance: produced by workshop in Meuse for the Abbey of Stavelot.
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
Consult the individual texts in the Apostolic Histories collection.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collon-Gevaert, Suzanne, Jean Lejeune, and Jacques Stiennon. Art roman dans la vallée de la Meuse aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Brussels: Arcade, 1965 (p. 208).
Lasko, Peter E. Ars Sacra: 800–1200. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972 (pp. 191–92, pl. 205).
Wittekind, Susanne. Altar – Reliquiar – Retabel: Kunst und Liturgie bei Wibald von Stablo. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2004 (pp. 51–172).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 27 October 2023.