Chasse (c. 1225–50): Art, History and Details

Chasse (c. 1225–50) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A chasse is a container with a pyramid-shaped roof that once served as a shrine for sacred relics. During the medieval period, chasses like this one were placed on church altars during high feast days to allow the faithful to venerate their sacred contents. The chasse’s design and imagery follow a common formula with Christ’s Crucifixion and Majesty decorating the central fields of its principal face. The back consists of two panels with identical decoration. Each features three busts of angels inscribed in medallions. Of the chasse’s lateral sides, only one is preserved in its original state, decorated with the figure of an imposing angel emerging from a bank of clouds. Here, the dark blue enamel background shows an even greater variety of rosettes and other decorative motifs, all engraved, stippled, and gilded like the ones on the other sides

Object facts

• Title: Chasse
• Date: c. 1225–50
• Culture: France, Limousin, Limoges, Gothic period, 13th century
• Type: Enamel
• Technique: copper: repoussé, engraved, stippled, and gilded; champlevé enamel; oak core
• Dimensions: Overall: 24.7 x 24.2 x 10.4 cm (9 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1940.347

Collection credit

Gift of S. Livingstone Mather, Constance Mather Bishop, Philip R. Mather, Katherine Hoyt Cross, and Katherine Mather McLean in accordance with the wishes of Samuel Mather

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M. “Objects from the Samuel Mather Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 3 (1941).
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Winter, Edward. Enamel Art on Metals. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.