One of a Pair of Columns from a Shrine

Description This piece is one of two small columns, or colonnettes, detached from the sides of a church-shaped reliquary shrine. One column (Walters 44.597) has checkered trellis pattern of enamel filled with tiny crosses and is topped by a gilt capital ornamented with small cast birds. The other column (Walters 44.598) has alternating, diagonal bands filled with cross ornament set within quatrefoils and a capital cast with an acanthus-leaf motif.

Exhibitions

• The Year 1200. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 1970.

Provenance Germeau, Paris; Joseph Brummer, Paris and New York, by purchase; Sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, April 23, 1949, no. 717; Walters Art Museum, 1949, by purchase.

Credit Museum purchase, 1949