File:German - The Mondsee Gospels and Treasure Binding with the Evangelists and Crucifixion - Walters W8 - Detail A.jpg
Original file (1,299 × 1,800 pixels, file size: 612 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Captions
Summary
editThe Mondsee Gospels and Treasure Binding with the Evangelists and Crucifixion ( ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Artist |
Anonymous (German artist)Unknown author |
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Title |
The Mondsee Gospels and Treasure Binding with the Evangelists and Crucifixion |
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Description |
English: Because of its organic nature and tactile qualities, ivory was sometimes associated with flesh. The luxurious binding of a gospel book, probably originally made in the eleventh or twelfth century but heavily restored in the nineteenth century, contains ivory plaques depicting the Four Evangelists (the figure of Matthew is a nineteenth-century replacement.). The ivory plaques are placed between the arms of a silver filigree cross, whose flourishing pattern suggests teeming life, a reference to the everlasting life offered to humanity through Christ's Crucifixion. That event is depicted in gold leaf at the center of the cross, protected by a large rock crystal. In this example, the materials help the viewer to interpret the conceptual structure of the work. Whereas the figures of the Evangelists, the human transmitters of the gospels, are tangible and tactile, the image of the crucified Christ has a floating, ghostly quality, mediated and refracted by the curved surface of the crystal. Rock crystal was understood as frozen water and because of its transparency was associated with purity, hence with Christ: its dual nature as liquid and solid is invoked here to suggest Christ's status as hovering between the world of the flesh ad that of the spirit. |
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Date | 11th or 12th century with later additions and alterations | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medium | parchment bound between oak boards covered with leather, silk damask, silver filigree, gilded panels, four ivory panels (one modern) depicting the Evangelists, and incised gold leaf depicting the Crucifixion under convex rock crystal | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Dimensions |
height: 29.6 cm (11.6 in); width: 23 cm (9 in); depth: 10.4 cm (4 in) dimensions QS:P2048,29.6U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,23U174728 dimensions QS:P5524,10.4U174728 |
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Collection |
institution QS:P195,Q210081 |
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Accession number |
W.8 |
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Place of creation | Regensburg, Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Object history |
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Exhibition history | 4000 Years of Modern Art. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1953-1957. The History of Bookbinding 525-1950 A.D.. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1957-1958. 2,000 Years of Calligraphy. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1965. Liturgical Objects in The Walters Art Gallery. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1967. Splendor in Books. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Grolier Club, New York. 1977-1978. Ivory: The Sumptuous Art. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1983-1984. Illuminated Manuscripts: Masterpieces in Miniature. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1984-1985. Regensburger Buchmalerei: Von frühkarolingischer Zeit bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters. Museen der Stadt Regensburg, Regensburg. 1987. Judging a Book by its Cover: Fine Bindings. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1988. Covered in Meaning: Book Bindings from The Walters. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1997-1998. Illuminating the Word: Gospel Books in the Middle Ages. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2004. Schatzkammer: Henry Walters' German Manuscripts. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2006. In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington. 2006-2007. Treasures of Heaven. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; The British Museum, London. 2010-2011. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Credit line | Acquired by Henry Walters | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Source | Walters Art Museum: Home page Info about artwork | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Permission (Reusing this file) |
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Licensing
editThis file was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the Walters Art Museum as part of a cooperation project. All artworks in the photographs are in public domain due to age. The photographs of two-dimensional objects are also in the public domain. Photographs of three-dimensional objects and all descriptions have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License.
In the case of the text descriptions, copyright restrictions only apply to longer descriptions which cross the threshold of originality.
العربيَّة | English | français | italiano | македонски | русский | sicilianu | +/− |
This is a faithful photographic reproduction of an original two-dimensional work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
This digital reproduction has been released under the following licenses:
In many jurisdictions, faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are not copyrightable. The Wikimedia Foundation's position is that these works are not copyrightable in the United States (see Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs). In these jurisdictions, this work is actually in the public domain and the requirements of the digital reproduction's license are not compulsory. |
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current | 12:54, 26 March 2012 | 1,299 × 1,800 (612 KB) | File Upload Bot (Kaldari) (talk | contribs) | == {{int:filedesc}} == {{Walters Art Museum artwork |artist = German |title = ''The Mondsee Gospels and Treasure Binding with the Evangelists and Crucifixion'' |description = {{en|Because of its organic nature and tactile qua... |
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