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III.—Medieval Copper Champlevé Enamelled Images of the Virgin and Child1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

W. L. Hildburgh
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Extract

In the group of images in the round with which this study is primarily concerned, the Virgin Mary is represented enthroned and holding the Child Christ on her left knee. He usually is seated, but sometimes stands. Two distinct methods of construction appear in these images: in one, a carved wooden core is overlaid with thin, but stiffish, sheets of copper shaped to conform closely to the surface of the carving; in the other, the image is constituted of stout sheets of copper beaten into shape and is hollow. It may be presumed that the craftsmen who made these images were heirs respectively of two separate traditions—one, that of sheathing a wooden core with metal; the other, that of applying metal figures in relief upon a champlevé enamelled surface. The images of both types are enriched with champlevé enamels. Perhaps some of the wooden-cored ones were sheathed to keep them from disintegration through decay or the ravages of worms, because of the special veneration in which they were currently held, but there are a number whose cores look to have been carved with an immediate view to employment as foundations for their present metallic casings. Most of the images, whether cored or coreless, would seem to have been made in the same region, and conceivably by one lot of workshops fairly closely associated with each other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 96 , 1955 , pp. 115 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1955

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