Ciborium

c. 1330/1350

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gilded copper and champlevé enamel

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall (height): 36.1 cm (14 3/16 in.)
    overall (diameter of base): 17.7 cm (6 15/16 in.)
    overall (diameter of bowl): 12.1 cm (4 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.279

Artwork history & notes

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.

Associated Names

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.

2022

  • Conservation Division's Fiftieth Anniversary Committee. "Innovation and Collaboration: Fifty Years of Conservation at the National Gallery." Art for the Nation no. 66 (Fall 2022): 17, fig. 21.

Inscriptions

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

Markings

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

Wikidata ID

Q62107071

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