A HIGHLY IMPORTANT LIMOGES CHAMPLEVE ENAMEL GILT COPPER TABERNACLE

late 12th / early 13th century. The rectangular form with pyramidal top and palmette finial, the body with turquoise and dark blue enamel ground interspersed with rosettes, circles and cross-forms and with horizontal bands. The front panel with a figure of Christ in relief flanked by the Virgin and St. John with relief heads. The side panel with door depicting full length images of St. Peter and Paul within an arched niche, their heads in relief. The back panel with the enthroned Virgin in relief and within an aureole. The final side panel depicting the Myhr-Bearing Women and Angel, their heads in relief. Each triangular panel of the pyramidal top depicting a symbol of one of the Four Evangelists, with the faces in relief. Height 10 inches Width and depth 3.75 inches (25.4cm x 9.6cm).

The offered tabernacle is an exquisite example of Limoges production. Most gilt-copper and enamel boxes were wider than tall and used to house relics. Among these, the Thomas Becket Caskets are perhaps the most famous (one in the Louvre, Paris and one in the British Museum, London). Tabernacles such as this would contain the consecrated Eucharistic wafer. Despite the relative abundance of reliquary caskets in museum collections, only 7 tabernacles are recorded in collections (2 - Met. New York, 2 - Louvre, Paris, 1- San Sepolcro, Barletta, 1- Bargello, Florence, 1- Bayerisches National Museum, Munich). Some of these were featured in an exhibition of Limoges enamels at the Metropolitan New York and the Louvre in 1995-96. The offered lot represents a period in Limoges production when the bodies and heads of certain figures were formed in relief. These gilded figures set against a blue enameled background with decorative roundels created an other worldly effect. The vibrant blue pigments created from imported lapis and azurite were of great expense, and reserved for only the finest ecclesiastic objects such as the offered lot.