Date: 11th century Place of Production: Regensburg, Germany Description: This eleventh-century Gospel Book is famous for its exquisite detail and the rarity of its survival as a complete book. The cover demonstrates all the hallmarks of Ottonian art, with silver filigree and gilding. Ivory plaques depict the four Evangelists, while a golden image of the…
Date: c. 1050 Place of Production: Germany(?) Description: An ivory panel depicting Christ, with a halo above him. Here, he sits upon a globe with a book in his left hand and two keys in his right. Held at: British Museum Accession Number: 1856,0623.28 Images released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)…
Date: 10th Century Place of Production: Spain Description: This cylindrical box, known as a pyxis (Arabic ushnan), would have been used to store aromatics and cosmetics. Adorned with secular imagery, it includes interwoven vines and geometrically symmetrical birds enclosed within heart-shaped compartments, sheltered under a canopy of wide leaves.This example belongs to a group of…
Date: c.985–c.990 Place of Production: Germany(?) Description: This panel depicts two Magi presenting their gifts to Christ and the Virgin Mary, who were presumably originally on the left-hand panel along with the third Magus. The panel is decorated with an acanthus border, a popular motif in this period, while buildings decorate the background of…
Date: c. 1050 Place of Production: Fulda, Germany(?) Description: Haloed Christ, at the centre of the carving, stretches out his hands to show his wounds. He is flanked by the symbols of the four evangelists (Matthew the man, Mark the lion, Luke the bull, and John the eagle). The little objects adorning the central panel…
Date: 960s Place of Production: Milan, Italy Description: A haloed Christ, followed by a number of his disciples, appears at the bier of the widow’s son. Mourners and coffin-bearers feature on the right-hand side, while the background is in a style known as ‘open work’, and is decirated with crosses. Held at: British Museum Accession Number:…
Date: c.900–1100 Place of Production: Venice, Italy Description: In this panel Christ, depicted with a halo second from the left, walks with his hand raised and a staff in his left hand. One of his apostles follows him, while Mary and Martha are on the right of the panel, one kneeling in supplication. To the…
Date: Early 10th Century Place of Production: Milan(?), Northern Italy Description: This extremely detailed plaque probably originated as a decoration for a manuscript. In the panel, we see three holy women travelling to anoint the body of Jesus held in the sepulchre (the building at the centre of the panel). To their left, an angel…
Date: 11th century Place of Production: Cologne, Germany Description: This ivory would originally have been one of four, each representing one of the four evangelists, and together they probably decorated a gospel book. Mark appears here alongside his traditional symbol, the lion. The scroll reads ‘vox clamantis’, an abbreviated version of one of the opening…
Date: 10th Century Place of Production: Northern Italy Description: This reliquary, a box designed to hold the holy remains of a saint, was originally painted with copper foil, and green and vermillion paint – the paint is in fact still visible. The ‘open-work’ design features interlace and animals depicted as part of a deliberately flat…
