Description
The crucial key to the date of this cross is found in the cross’s own inscriptions. They name two emperors, who must be co-rulers. On the side with the bust of Christ, we read "Lord, help Romanos, the Orthodox ruler" [KYRIE (boethe) ROMANO(o) ORTH(odoxo) DES(pote)]; and on the side with the Mother of God is "Bearer of God, help Basil the emperor, born in the purple" [THEOTO(ke) B(oethe) BASIL(eio) POR(phyrogenneto) DES(pote)]. The emperors who ruled at the same time with these names were Romanos II (reigned 945-963) and his son Basil, born in 958, and recognized as co-ruler in 960. The overlapping dates of their reigns provide an accurate date for the cross between 960 and 963.
Given the lack of means of suspension or support, the cross was very likely meant to be hand held and was distributed as a gift of honor from the emperors to a court official. The imagery, inscriptions, and decoration are all applied in niello, a compound of silver and sulphur which turns black after heating and was used extensively on silver because of the strong contrast it produced with the shiny surface of the metal.
- S. Zwirn
Bibliography
The Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Harvard University (Washington, D.C., 1955), 56, no. 135, pl. p. 66.
V. Laurent, "The Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Harvard University, Washington (review)," Revue des Études Byzantines 14 (1956): 298-300, esp. 298-300.
M. C. Ross and G. Downey, "An Emperor's Gift and Notes on Byzantine Silver Jewelry of the Middle Period," The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 19-20 (1956-57): 22ff.
K. Weitzmann, "Ein kaiserliches Lektionar einer byzantinischen Hofschule," in Festschrift Karl M. Swoboda zum 28. Januar 1959, ed. O. Benesch (Wien, 1959), 3099-320, fig. 76, 77.
J. Beckwith, The Art of Constantinople; An Introduction to Byzantine Art, 330-1453 (New York, 1961), 94, fig. 119.
A. Frolow, "Le culte de la relique de la Vraie Croix à la fin du VIe et au début du VIIe siècles," Byzantinoslavica 12 (1961): 225–58, esp. 226-227, fig. 4.
O. Pächt, "The 'Avignon Diptych' and its Eastern Ancestry," in De Artibus Opuscula XL; Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, 1, ed. M. Meiss (New York, 1961), 402-21l; vol. 2, pl. 134, figs. 26, 27.
M. C. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, vol. 2 Jewelry, Enamels, and Art of the Migration Period (Washington, D.C., 1965, 2nd ed. with Addendum by S .A. Boyd and S. R. Zwirn, 2005), 73-74, no. 97, pl. 51, 52.
Handbook of the Byzantine Collection (Washington, D.C., 1967), 22-23, no. 77, pl. 77.
R. Cormack, M. Vasilaki, and B. Mouseio, Byzantium, 330-1453, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, October 25, 2008 - March 22, 2009, (London: New York, 2008), 115, fig. 23.
Acquisition History
Purchased by Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss from the dealer George Zacos, Istanbul, July 24, 1953;
Gift of Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss to Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., 1953;
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.
