The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

Reliquary bag with lions

Reliquary bag with lions

late 1100s-1300s
cloth d’areste, weft-faced lozenge twill variant: silk and gold thread
Average: 8 x 36.9 cm (3 1/8 x 14 1/2 in.)
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1931.462.c
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

This silk bag originally held bits of mummified flesh or tissue which was labeled as being from Saint Bartholomew.

Description

This bag was originally inside of the portable altar commissioned by Countess Gertrude of Brunswick, one of the Guelph Treasure’s earliest and most sumptuous objects.
  • Treasury of Cathedral of St. Blasius, Brunswick, Lower Saxony, Germany; (Goldschmidt Galleries, New York).
  • The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned: cat. no. 95 archive.org
    May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Reproduced: no. 19, p. 24
    Bagnoli, Martina. Treasures of heaven: saints, relics, and devotion in medieval Europe. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2010.
    Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland; New Haven: Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015. Reproduced: P. 185, fig. 5.15; Mentioned: P. 184
  • Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 17, 2010-January 17, 2011); The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD (February 13-May 15, 2011).
  • {{cite web|title=Reliquary bag with lions|url=false|author=|year=late 1100s-1300s|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1931.462.c