For this third set of Nicola 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”, the focus is on medieval reliquaries, and modern ones inspired by them. The first piece, which is the result of work done in four different periods, exemplifies how the influence of medieval art endured in later times.
A reliquary cross made at the end of the 12th century (1180-1200), mounted on a base made in the 14th, with a corpus of the 16th, assembled into its current form in the 19th.
A reliquary plaque made in the German city of Hildesheim, copper in champlevé and enamel, 1160-70.
A reliquary of the column of the Flagellation, made in Venice in the mid 15th-century.
A reliquary statue of St Anne, made in Germany in 1472. Anne is shown holding a small coffer, smell figures of Jesus and Mary to either side. This motif, known as a “selbdritte – she herself (i.e. Anne) is the third” was very popular in late medieval Germany.
Two reliquaries of a rather unusual design, with a small tower resting on top of a box, were both made in the area of Basel, Switzerland, in the later 15th or early 16th century, and later partly reworked.
A 19th century reliquary, supposed to be a based portrait of a portrait of Queen Isabella of Castille...
and paired with this one supposed to be a portrait of her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon. The head of this latter piece was in fact made in the Spanish city of Saragossa ca. 1500-15, while the base was made in the 19th century.
Part of a reliquary casket made perhaps at Metz in the 11th or 12th century, of whale ivory, wood and metal, reworked in the 19th century.
A reliquary and portable altar, made at Hildesheim in Germany ca. 1170-80, made of wood, gilded cooper, and champlevé enamel. It originally stood on bases in the form of lions, which were lost in the 19th century, but has not otherwise been altered.
A reliquary with a bust of an unknown bishop or abbot, made in the beginning of the 16th century, resting on a neo-Gothic base of the 19th.
Another composite work, a reliquary bust of a female Saint, made in France at the end of the 12th or early 13th century, partly reworked with new decorative elements in the later 19th century.
Another similarly composite reliquary bust of the 16th century, on a 19th century base.
Two deliberate forgeries made in the city of Metz ca. 1850 by a man named D’Hermange, who produced around a dozen of them. They were widely accepted as authentic (by Viollet-le-Duc, the restorer of Notre-Dame de Paris, among others), and not only purchased as medieval works by the Musée de Cluny, but also copied by 19th century artists looking to imitate medieval works.
A reliquary made in Paris (?) sometime around the last decade of the 19th century, modeled on medieval works of the later 13th and 14th century.
