The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Plaque from a Portable Altar Showing the Crucifixion

Plaque from a Portable Altar Showing the Crucifixion

1050–1100

Description

These intricately carved ivory panels once decorated the sides of a portable altar. Three of the plaques, those depicting Christ in Majesty and his apostles, were the first major acquisition of William M. Milliken, the museum's first curator of decorative arts and later director (1930–58). They were purchased from Emile Rey, the New York partner of Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Company, who had been closely associated with J. P. Morgan, Henry Walters, and other important American collectors. The fourth plaque, depicting the Crucifixion, was donated by Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Company later the same year. As Milliken later recalled, the pieces Rey showed him "were immensely intriguing, monumental in scale, even if tiny in size, the Christ in the Mandorla could have been enlarged and would have graced the tympanum of a great cathedral. . . . These morse [that is, walrus] ivories overwhelmed me . . . Somehow they must come to Cleveland. How was the question. Yet they would and must."
  • Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Company, Inc., New York.
  • null
    Gertsman, Elina and Barbara H. Rosenwein. The Middle Ages in 50 Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Mentioned: p. 64-67; Reproduced: p. 65
  • The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).
  • {{cite web|title=Plaque from a Portable Altar Showing the Crucifixion|url=false|author=|year=1050–1100|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1922.359