Book Cover with Christ in Majesty, c. 1210

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 18

Medium

champlevé enamel on copper, with traces of gilding, mounted on wooden backing

Dimensions

overall (metal plate): 21.3 x 11.2 cm (8 3/8 x 4 7/16 in.)
overall (wood backing): 22.6 x 12.4 cm (8 7/8 x 4 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.182

Artists / Makers

French 13th Century (artist)

Image Use

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Inscription

on a paper covering most of the wooden back, a description in Italian and Latin concerned chiefly with the iconography (see object file in NGA Curatorial Records for transcription and translation)

Provenance

Reportedly Trivulzio collection, Milan;[1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold by 1937 or 1939 to Samuel H. Kress, New York;[2] gift 27 February 1950 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] A red-bordered sticker on the back with the number 6486 perhaps records a Trivulzio inventory number. On a paper affixed to the wooden back, covering most of it, is a lengthy description in Italian and Latin, concerned chiefly with the iconography, presumably the work of a Trivulzio curator or cataloguer. A transcription and translation are in the object folder in NGA curatorial records.

[2] A. M. Hind to NGA chief curator John Walker, 12 June 1951, states that Hind first heard (from Alfred Frankfurter, editor of The Art News) of the Trivulzio nielli, with which this enamel was acquired, in Kress's hands in 1937. Marie-Madeleine Gauthier, in a letter to Alison Luchs of 25 June 1984, mentions a sale of the Trivulzio collection in London, 6 June 1939; no catalogue has been located.

[3] Deposition by Herbert L. Spencer, executive director, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 21 August 1956, in the secretary-general counsel's office files, National Gallery of Art, Kress no. 0-154.

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Kress, Samuel H.
Trivulzio collection

Technical Summary

The object is in worn condition, with losses to the enamel at all four corners, below the ox on the lower right, beneath the right arm of Christ, and at the top center. The lower corners of the metal plaque are broken off, but the corners of the wood backing show no corresponding damage, indicating that the wood postdates the damage. The wood is chipped at the edges and has holes, possibly wormholes, in many places. A triangular metal plate, surmounted by a ring for suspension, is affixed to the back. Of the nails that once held the metal plaque to the wood backing, only the corner ones remain.

Traces of gilding survive, notably around the figures' necks, in the lines surrounding the inner rainbow, the stool, and the cruciform rosettes, and in dots within the mandorla. The right arm of Christ is a replacement, with considerable damage to the enamel around it. X-ray fluorescence analysis, however, indicates that the alloy is similar to the rest of the body.[1] This alloy is fairly pure copper, with traces of lead, silver, antimony, tin, iron, calcium, and chlorine (the last three elements probably present in corrosion products), consistent with medieval production. Gold and mercury in gilded areas indicate the use of fire gilding.

[1] Reports of 6 January and 4 February 1987, in NGA conservation laboratory files.

Bibliography

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, D.C., 1993: 33-35, repro. 34.