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Plaque with Jewelled Cross and the Bust of an Emperor


Middle Byzantine
mid 10th century
29 cm x 13.8 cm (11 7/16 in. x 5 7/16 in.)
ivory
BZ.1937.18

On view


Permalink: http://museum.doaks.org/objects-1/info/27013

Additional Images
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Additional Image Detail, bust
Detail, bust
Additional Image Detail, proper left lower corner
Detail, proper left lower corner
Additional Image Detail, slits on side
Detail, slits on side
Additional Image Obverse
Obverse
Additional Image Reverse
Reverse


Description
The Schlossmuseum in Gotha in Germany houses an ivory plaque almost identical to this one in every respect. Both have arched frames of the same repeated pattern of acanthus leaves; both represent the cross encrusted with cabochon jewels; and both place portrait heads in medallions at the crossing. The difference is in the subjects of the portraits. The Dumbarton Oaks plaque is a portrait of an emperor wrapped in his jeweled loros (ceremonial stole), wearing a diadem, complete with cross and pendoulia (hanging ornaments), and sanctified by a jeweled halo behind his head. the Gotha plaque shows Christ holding a book and raising his right hand in blessing, a type known as the Pantokrator. Christ also has a halo, naturally, but one decorated with a jeweled cross. Christ faces the viewer, but the emperor on the Dumbarton Oaks plaque faces to the right with his arms extended, as if speaking or even pleading.

While it seems clear that these plaques have a common origin, it is not clear how they might have been combined. There are three slots carved into the right edge of the Dumbarton Oaks plaque, and three corresponding slots in the left edge of the Gotha plaque, indicating that they were once hinged together after the fashion of late Roman triptychs (see the Diptych of Philoxenos, BZ.1935.4). This specific kind of hinge was not, however, in use in Byzantium, so they must have been joined this way later in life, perhaps in Western Europe. As for its original use, the pleading gesture of the emperor is one found time and again in images of the Deësis, that is, images of Christ flanked by the Virgin and John the Baptist, as well as by saints, emperors, and empresses, all facing him and interceding on behalf of the devout. It may well be that there was originally an ensemble of three or more plaques.

- J. Hanson


Bibliography
S. Donatus, De'dittici degli antichi profani, e sacri, libri III, coll'appendice d'alcuni necrologj, e calendarj finora non pubblicati (Lucca, 1753) vol. 3.2, 188, pl. 5.

A. F. Gori, Thesaurus Veterum Diptychorum Consularium et Ecclesias Ticorum ... Opus Posthumum Adcessere IO. Baptistae Passeri Pisaurensis ...in Postremum Additamenta et in Tomos Angulos Praefationes (Florence, 1759), 142ff.

A. Goldschmidt and K. Weitzmann, Reliefs (Berlin, 1934, 2nd ed. 1979), 37, pl. 14.

Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum 10.4 (Dec. 1945): 108, esp. 112.

Handbook of the Collection (Washington, D.C., 1946), 77, no. 157, pl. p. 85.

J. Deèr, "Das Kaiserbild im Kreuz," Schweizer Beiträge zur allgemeinen Geschichte 13 (1955): 44-110, esp. 64-68, pl. 7.

The Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Harvard University (Washington, D.C., 1955), 107, no. 235, pl. p. 120.

Handbook of the Byzantine Collection (Washington, D.C., 1967), 80, no. 282, pl. 282.

K. Weitzmann, Ivories and Steatites (Washington, D.C., 1972), 55-58, no. 24, pl. 32, 34.

A. Cutler, The Craft of Ivory: Sources, Techniques, and Uses in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 200-1400, Publications / Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, 8 (Washington, D.C., 1985), 14 and passim., fig. 17, 47.

———, The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium (9th-11th Centuries) (Princeton, N.J., 1994), 28, 150, 208, 221, 235, fig. 24.

J. A. Cotsonis, Byzantine Figural Processional Crosses, Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Publications, 10 (Washington, D.C., 1994), 66-67, no. 1.

A. Cutler and J. M. Spieser, Byzance médiévale, 700-1204, L'Univers des formes, 41 (Paris, 1996), 184, pl. 139.

C. L. Connor, The Color of Ivory: Polychromy on Byzantine Ivories, (Princeton, 1998), 63, 64, 85, no. 46, pl. 16, 17.

C. Stiegemann, Byzanz, das Licht aus dem Osten: Kult und Alltag im byzantinischen Reich vom 4. bis 15. Jahrhundert, exhibition catalogue, Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Paderborn, December 6, 2001-March 31, 2002, (Mainz, 2001), 119.

Warren T. Woodfin, “Celestial Hierarchies and Earthly Hierarchies in the Art of the Byzantine Church,” in The Byzantine World, ed. Paul Stephenson (London & New York: Routledge, 2010), 305-306, fig. 23.1a.


Exhibition History
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, "Arts of the Middle Ages," Feb. 17 - Mar. 24, 1940.

Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, "A Selection of Ivories, Bronzes, Metalwork and Other Objects from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection," Nov. 15 - Dec. 31, 1945.

Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, "The Craft of Ivory," Oct. 22, 1985 - Jan. 6, 1986.

Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, "Byzantine Figural Processional Crosses," Sept. 23, 1993 - Jan. 29, 1995.


Acquisition History
Collection of Francesco Maria Fiorentini (Museo Fiorentini), Lucca.

Purchased from the dealer Adolf Loewi, Venice, through Royall Tyler and Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, by Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, 1937;

Collection of Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, D.C., 1937-1940;

Gifted to Harvard University, November 29, 1940;

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.