Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 2)

This is the second post in our series of Nicola’s photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, a display of medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. Here we have an interesting mix of vestments, textiles, reliquaries, and vessels, but we begin with two paintings which include medieval liturgical objects in them. 

A still-life by the French painter Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe (1830 – 1901), ca. 1890, titled “Still Life with a Reliquary of St Henry and various medieval artworks.” Desgoffes was a highly regarded specialist in the still-life genre, and very interested in medieval art: the objects represented here are all in the medieval collection of the Louvre.

“Ornaments from the Musée de Cluny”, by Joseph Bail, 1886

A chalice originally made perhaps in Catalonia, sometime from roughly 1325-50, restored in the 19th century in Paris.

A reliquary with part of the arm bone of the Apostle St James the Less, made for the church dedicated to him in Liège, Belgium, in 1889. The firm that produced this, Joseph and Georges Wilmotte, working on a design by the architect Jean-Baptiste Bethune, won a silver medal for it at the Paris Exposition that same year.

Cloth made for a liturgical vestment, 1869

The back of a velvet and silk chasuble made in Florence in the last quarter of the 15th century.

A sample of fabric made for liturgical vestments in Lyon, ca. 1869, a brocaded lampas with a silk backing, and threads of red silk and metal.

A fragment of a border with a scene of the Annunciation, made of the same kind of material, but in Turin, Italy, ca. 1885-1900...

inspired by this piece of Tuscan manufacture, also the same material, from the last quarter of the 15th century.

A chalice and paten made in 1902, of gilded silver, enamel and semi-precious stones, combined with relief decorations: on the base, Ss Vincent de Paul, John the Evangelist and the Virgin Mary; on the cup, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Giving of the Keys to Peter; on the paten, the Lamb of God, surrounded by vine leaves within a quatrefoil.

A miter and crook made in Paris in 1849 for the ordination of Pierre de Dreux-Brézém bishop of Moulins from 1850 to 1893, a strong supporter of the neo-Gothic movement in art.

The crook is made of gilded silver, and partly enameled, and has little statues on the knob...

while the miter is made of red silk decorated with gold threads, pearl, emeralds and amethysts.

A design for a large candlestick made in 1851 by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the famous restorer of Notre-Dame de Paris, inspired by similar piece made champlevé enamel in Limoges at the end of the 12th century. It is not known if the design was made for a specific church, or ever executed.

A design made one year later by Jean-Baptiste Lassus for a portable reliquary shrine of St Radegund, queen of the Franks (ca. 520 - 587), commissioned by the bishop of Poitiers, where she died, and where her relics are kept.

A silver candlestick made in Paris in 1860-65...

modeled on this Romanesque piece of the mid-11th century.

A monstrance made in Paris between 1856 and 1891, of gilded silver, enamel, and precious stones.

Detail on the base.

A chasuble made at either Paris or Rheims at an uncertain date, mid-19th or early 20th century...

modeled on this one commissioned by Guillaume de Joinville, bishop of Rheims from 1219-26.