National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Ciborium
  • Inscription
  • Marks and Labels
  • Provenance
  • Bibliography

Overview

No overview.

Inscription

in reserve in enameled sections of foot, names of the Three Kings, each divided so that the letters flank the relevant figures: BALTASAR, MELCHIOR, CASPAR; on scroll carried by the angel of the Annunciation on lid: AVE MARIA

Marks and Labels

scratched into the bottom of the foot: 26; other illegible arabic numerals

Provenance

Reportedly Poblet Abbey, Catalonia, Spain.[1] Purchased from an unknown source by Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, as French (Limoges), fourteenth century; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, after purchase by funds of the Estate; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] Poblet is a Cistercian abbey in the archdiocese of Tarragona in northeastern Spain. Founded in the twelfth century, the abbey became the burial place of Spanish kings. If this ciborium was at Poblet, it probably left in 1835, when the monks departed and the abbey was sacked during the First Carlist War. See Joaquin Guitert y Fontseré, Real Monasterio de Poblet, 3d ed., Barcelona, 1929: 338-341 and Jaime Finestres y de Monsalvo, Historia del Real Monasterio de Poblet, 5 vols., Barcelona, 1947-1955.

Exhibition History

Bibliography

1935
Inventory of the Objects d'Art at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, The Estate of the Late P.A.B. Widener. Philadelphia, 1935: 30.
1942
Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 9, as Limoges 14th Century, Ciborium of copper gilt with champlevé enamel.
1952
Christensen, Erwin O. Objects of Medieval Art from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1952: 18-22, 30.
1967
Howell, C. W. "Ciborium." In New Catholic Encyclopedia. 16 vols. New York, 1967: 3:870, repro.
1972
Gauthier 1972, 191-192, 376, no. 140, repro. 191.
1975
Ebitz, David McKinnon. In Eucharistic Vessels of the Middle Ages. Exh. cat. Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975: 84-85.
1981
Leone de Castris, Pierluigi. In Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie: smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania. Ed. Giusti and Leone de Castris. Exh. cat. Museo Duca di Martina, Naples, Florence, 1981: 18.
1983
The Thomas F. Flannery, Jr. Collection; Medieval and Later Works of Art. Sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1 December 1983: 50-51, under no. 37.
1993
Distelberger, Rudolf, Alison Luchs, Philippe Verdier, and Timonthy H. Wilson. Western Decorative Arts, Part I: Medieval, Renaissance, and Historicizing Styles including Metalwork, Enamels, and Ceramics. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1993: 41-45, color fig. 42.

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