Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 6 pages
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
The image of the Man of Sorrows is a distillation of the events of Christ's Passion. Christ contemplates with sorrow the instruments of his suffering: the cross and hammer, whips, nails, column of the Flagellation, and the dice thrown by the soldiers for his garments. The gabled container held by an angel once housed a thorn believed to be from Christ's Crown of Thorns, while the hinged cross and column probably held pieces of wood believed to be from Christ's cross and from the column against which he was whipped.According to an inscription on the base, the reliquary was ordered by the bishop of Olomouc in Moravia to house the Holy Thorn. It was surely a present for Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Both men's coats of arms (those of Moravia and Bohemia) are on the base, and the thorn was already in the emperor's famous collection of relics, as a gift from the king of France. As Charles reigned over both Bohemia and Moravia only from 1347 to 1349, the piece dates to this time. The sophisticated workmanship is characteristic of objects created for the imperial court in Prague.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
29555
label
Reliquary with the Man of Sorrows
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
6
Source metadata
id
29555
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Reliquary with the Man of Sorrows
description
The image of the Man of Sorrows is a distillation of the events of Christ's Passion. Christ contemplates with sorrow the instruments of his suffering: the cross and hammer, whips, nails, column of the Flagellation, and the dice thrown by the soldiers for his garments. The gabled container held by an angel once housed a thorn believed to be from Christ's Crown of Thorns, while the hinged cross and column probably held pieces of wood believed to be from Christ's cross and from the column against which he was whipped.According to an inscription on the base, the reliquary was ordered by the bishop of Olomouc in Moravia to house the Holy Thorn. It was surely a present for Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Both men's coats of arms (those of Moravia and Bohemia) are on the base, and the thorn was already in the emperor's famous collection of relics, as a gift from the king of France. As Charles reigned over both Bohemia and Moravia only from 1347 to 1349, the piece dates to this time. The sophisticated workmanship is characteristic of objects created for the imperial court in Prague.
provenance
Jacques Seligmann, Paris; purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, June 9 1903; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.
date
1347-1349 (Medieval)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Gold, Silver & Jewelry
reliquaries
imageCount
6
pageCount
6
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
29.5
height
21.3
depth
12.7
dimensionsRaw
H: 11 5/8 x W at wings: 8 3/8 x D: 5 in. (29.53 x 21.27 x 12.7 cm)
Source extras
cul
Bohemian
style
Gothic
inscriptions
[Transcription] Majuscule inscription on the pedestal: HANC.MONSTRANCIAM.CUM.SPINA.CHORONE.DOMINI.DNS.IOHANNES.OLOMUCZENSIS.EPISCOPUS.PREPARARI.FECIT.[Translation] John
the bishop of Olmütz
commissioned this monstrance with the thorn of the crown of Christ
med
gilded silver, champlevé enamel, and glass
creator_ids
15610
15371
collection_ids
MED
exhibition_ids
893
2028
2064
2115
2229
13
2691
2858
2859
3310
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
06be7f86e398873c
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
947165e90b010d7c
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
3
type
photo
mediaId
1abaabdc42d4be19
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
4
type
photo
mediaId
f0225dd691b01a29
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
5
type
photo
mediaId
939b57caa0ed99dc
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
6
type
photo
mediaId
c93e5cf97f0dcca5
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no