Collection Online as of January 28, 2021

Reliquary bag with lions

late 1100s-1300s

Part of a set. See all set records

Spain, probably Almeria

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

106C Medieval Treasury

Fun Fact

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.

Provenance

Treasury of Cathedral of St. Blasius, Brunswick, Lower Saxony, Germany; (Goldschmidt Galleries, New York).

Citations

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

Bagnoli, Martina. Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe. [Cleveland, Ohio]: 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; Mentioned: p. 184

Exhibition history

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).