Set of four enamelled silver plaquettes

Unknown

1520–30 · Silver, enamel, gold · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

These sculptural reliefs (2015.388.1–.4) display extraordinary, jewel-like enameling accomplished through an innovative technique involving molten glass paste built up over an armature of gold wires on a silver base. In expressive detail, they represent four scenes of Christ’s Passion at a tiny scale—fully appreciable only to those privileged enough to view the reliefs at close range. (The compositions owe more than a little to the Small Passion print series by the famous Northern Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer.) Expensive as they were, the plaques would have been worth only a fraction of the treasure in the container they decorated: most likely some lost relic, imbued with spiritual power and believed to bridge our world with the divine.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1520–30

Medium

Silver, enamel, gold

Culture

German, Augsburg or Nuremberg

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Acquisitions Fund, 2015