ALISON LUCHS:
I’m Alison Luchs, Curator of Early European Sculpture at the National Gallery of Art.
When you look at this cup, you notice a wonderful sense of movement that pervades both the stone, the swirling, spiraling veining that winds its way over the surface and is broken up by the fluting and the spiral coils of wire that cover the surfaces of the goldsmith work.
NARRATOR:
This chalice was made around a thousand years ago in France, by expert craftsmen working for the Abbot of the royal Catholic church of Saint-Denis, just outside Paris. They started with an ancient carved stone cup.
ALISON LUCHS:
We believe it was made in ancient Egypt, in the first or second century B.C., so just a little before the time of Cleopatra. And it represents the belief that beautiful, veined stones were infused with a kind of divine power and lifeforce.
NARRATOR:
The craftsmen set it in gilded silver, studded with jewels and decorated with golden filigree wire in coiling patterns.
The chalice, placed on the church altar, would have contained wine made sacred by the priest. Pointed arches and stained-glass windows allowed richly colored light to flood the Gothic-style church – a feature also reflected in the chalice.
ALISON LUCHS:
What the chalice has in common with this is not so much the shapes as the belief in the power of light to represent holiness and to bring people closer to God.
