Ivory sculpture now stored at The Cloisters, New York, United States
Crucified Christ, 19.2 x 5.3 x 3.5 cm
The Crucified Christ (MA 2005.274) is a sculpture in walrusivory, probably from Paris c 1300, now in The Cloisters, New York. It is lined with traces of paint and gilding.[1] Although small in scale, it is structured in a monumental style.[2] It shows the dead and crucified body of Christ; in the 12th century the dead Christ was widely seen as representing human suffering. This work is noted for its high quality craftsmanship, and the subtle and sensitive rendering of the torso.[3] The stunted legs are a notable and somewhat inexplicable feature.[citation needed]
The sculpture is badly damaged; both arms, which would have been made separately, are missing. It is one of the few surviving northern European ivory statuettes of its kind (about 50 are known), popular in Paris around 1300, and is arguably the finest of its kind.[1] It was likely intended to be hung above an altar, as a visible symbol of the sacrifice of the Son of God; it would have been seen as a testament to his triumph over death.[4][failed verification]
It was in a private collection in Argentina from 1964, before its acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005.[2]
Barnet, Peter; Wu, Nancy (2012). The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture (75th Anniv., rev. and expandeded.). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p.82. ISBN978-1-58839-477-4.
"Front Matter: [Advertisement for Paris Biennale]". The Burlington Magazine. 146 (1218): IV. 2005. JSTOR20073685.
Little, Charles T. (2011). "Kölner Elfenbeinschnitzereien der Gotik: viele offene Fragen". In Täube, Dagmar; Fleck, Miriam Verena (eds.). Glanz und Größe des Mittelalters: Kölner Meisterwerke aus den großen Sammlungen der Welt (in German). München: Hirmer Verlag. p.88. ISBN978-3-7774-4531-1.
Related Research Articles
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. In 2022 it welcomed 3,208,832 visitors, ranking it the third most visited U.S museum, and eighth on the list of most-visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art museums. The first portion of the approximately 2-million-square-foot (190,000 m2) building was built in 1880. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe.
The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Governed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it contains a large collection of medieval artworks shown in the architectural settings of French monasteries and abbeys. Its buildings are centered around four cloisters—the Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont and Trie—that were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George Grey Barnard in France before 1913, and moved to New York. Barnard's collection was bought for the museum by financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. Other major sources of objects were the collections of J. P. Morgan and Joseph Brummer.
The Hunt of the Unicorn or the Unicorn Tapestries is a series of seven tapestries made in the South Netherlands around 1495–1505, and now in The Cloisters in New York. They were possibly designed in Paris and show a group of noblemen and hunters in pursuit of a unicorn through an idealised French landscape. The tapestries were woven in wool, metallic threads, and silk. The vibrant colours, still evident today, were produced from dye plants: weld (yellow), madder (red), and woad (blue).
Romanesque art is the art of Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 12th century, or later depending on region. The preceding period is known as the Pre-Romanesque period. The term was invented by 19th-century art historians, especially for Romanesque architecture, which retained many basic features of Roman architectural style – most notably round-headed arches, but also barrel vaults, apses, and acanthus-leaf decoration – but had also developed many very different characteristics. In Southern France, Spain, and Italy there was an architectural continuity with the Late Antique, but the Romanesque style was the first style to spread across the whole of Catholic Europe, from Sicily to Scandinavia. Romanesque art was also greatly influenced by Byzantine art, especially in painting, and by the anti-classical energy of the decoration of the Insular art of the British Isles. From these elements was forged a highly innovative and coherent style.
Girona Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Girona, is a Roman Catholic church located in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Girona. The cathedral's interior includes the widest Gothic nave in the world, with a width of 23 metres (75 ft), and the second-widest of any church after that of St. Peter's Basilica. Its construction was begun in the 11th century in the Romanesque architectural style, and continued in the 13th century in the Gothic style. Of the original Romanesque edifice only the 12th-century cloister and a bell tower remain. The second bell tower was completed in the 18th century.
The Cloisters Cross, is a complex 12th-century ivory Romanesque altar cross or processional cross. It is named after The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which acquired it in 1963.
The crucifix of Ferdinand and Sancha is an ivory carving from circa 1063, today in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid. It was part of an offering by King Ferdinand I of León and Queen Sancha to furnish the basilica of San Isidoro de León. It is the earliest known crucifix from Spain depicting the body of Christ. Although earlier Spanish crucifixes of gold, ivory and wood are known, they are all without images. The official inventory of the royal gift describes the crucifix as "a cross of ivory with the image of our crucified Redeemer". It measures 52 cm high, 34.5 cm wide, and 1 cm thick, with the width of the cross beams being 7 cm. The image of Christ is 305 mm tall.
Nikolaus Hagenauer was a German late gothic sculptor from Hagenau. He was most likely born as Niklas Zimmerlin, but was also documented and signed works as Niclas Hagenauer, Niklaus Hagenauer, Niclas Hagnower, Niklaus Hagnower, Niclas von Hagenau and other variants.
The term Cologne School of Painting was first applied in the 19th century to describe old German paintings generally. It subsequently came to refer more specifically to painters who had their workshops in medieval Cologne and the lower-Rhine region from about 1300 to 1550.
Moutiers-Saint-Jean Abbey was a monastery located in what is now the village of Moutiers-Saint-Jean in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France. It is in Burgundy, near Dijon.
The Psalter of Bonne de Luxembourg is a small 14th-century illuminated manuscript in tempera, grisaille, ink and gold leaf on vellum. It is held in the collection of The Cloisters, New York, where it is usually on display.
The Enthroned Virgin and Child is a statuette in elephant ivory dated to between 1290 and 1300, now at The Cloisters in New York. Originating probably from London, certainly English, it is today badly damaged. It originally showed a seated Virgin Mary, holding the child Christ, most of whose body is now lost, but at one time was perched on her left knee looking upwards. Only the toes of his left foot and part of his left leg and foot survive. It has a reddish-brown appearance, probably from a staining agent used in restoration.
Saint Barbara is a sculpture statuette in limewood with paint, completed by an unknown, probably German, artist in Strasbourg, Alsace, in present-day France, around 1490. This representation of the early Christian martyr Saint Barbara is today in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It was commissioned as a fitting as part of for the high altarpiece of the Saint Mauritius church, near Strasbourg. Some of the painted wings and figures of this central shrine have survived, allowing art historians to propose a possible reconstruction, usually with this work as one of the two outermost figures. Lost sculptures, but known from record include those of Saint Maurice, Pope Gregory the Great, while the central figure was a standing Virgin and Child.
The Fuentidueña Apse is a Romanesque apse dated 1175–1200 that was built as part of the San Martín Church at Fuentidueña, province of Segovia, Castile and León, Spain. Little is known about the church's commission, design or early history. It is believed to have been built when the town was of strategic importance to the Christian kings of Castile in their defence against Moorish invaders; the church is situated on an imposing hill below a fortified castle.
The Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-Jean is a portal dating from c 1250, originally for the monastery of Moutiers-Saint-Jean, near Dijon, Burgundy, France, and installed at The Cloisters, New York City, since 1932. It was designed in the Gothic style and carved from white oolitic limestone. The abbey was founded in the 5th century, and became a major center of influence. The abbey was patronised by a line of kings and nobles over the centuries; at one time it was financed by the dukes of Burgundy.
The Cloisters Apocalypse, MS 68.174 is a small French illuminated manuscript dated c. 1330. It is based on John the Evangelist's New Testament visions and apocalyptic revelation. According to Christian legend John was exiled c. 95 CE to the Aegean island of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation. The book evokes John's despair and isolation while exiled, and his prophecy of events and terrors of the last days.
Pietà a small painted wood sculpture dated to c. 1375–1400, now in the collection of the Cloisters, New York. Very little is known of it, except that is probably of southern German origin. The statuette emphasises the suffering of both the Virgin and Jesus Christ.
The Reliquary Shrine is an especially complex 14th century container for relics, now in The Cloisters, New York. It is made from translucent enamel, gilt-silver and paint, and dated to c 1325–50. Although first mentioned in a convent in Budapest, its style and influences betrays French craftsmanship. It has been proposed to be attributed by the Met to Jean de Toul written Jehan de Touyl in one French source from 1328, a French goldsmith about whom little is known, but who is associated with a small number of works with similar stylistic characteristics.
The Reliquary Cross is a small French metalwork sculpture dated c. 1180, now in The Cloisters museum in New York. The reliquary cross is double armed, and made from silver gilt, crystal, beading and twisted wire, with embossed rosettes and a wood core. It contains six sequences of engravings; on either side of the shaft and on the four sides of the lower arms. These were intended to identify the relics contained within.
The Magdeburg Ivories are a set of 16 surviving ivory panels illustrating episodes of Christ's life. They were commissioned by Emperor Otto I, probably to mark the dedication of Magdeburg Cathedral, and the raising of the Magdeburg see to an archbishopric in 968. The panels were initially part of an unknown object in the cathedral that has been variously conjectured to be an antependium or altar front, a throne, door, pulpit, or an ambon; traditionally this conjectural object, and therefore the ivories as a group, has been called the Magdeburg Antependium. This object is believed to have been dismantled or destroyed in the 1000s, perhaps after a fire in 1049.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Side view
Head of Christ
