Engaged Capital with a Lion and a Basilisk (1175–1200): Art, History and Details

Engaged Capital with a Lion and a Basilisk (1175–1200) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The basilisk is an imaginary animal, half cock and half snake. According to medieval bestiaries, the basilisk could kill merely by its glance. It was commonly held as the symbol of the devil to be trodden down by Christ, first at the moment of his incarnation and then again during the Last Judgment.

Object facts

• Title: Engaged Capital with a Lion and a Basilisk
• Date: 1175–1200
• Culture: Northern Italy, Emilia (Bologna?), 12th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 30.2 x 33 x 29.3 cm (11 7/8 x 13 x 11 9/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Romanesque
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1972.20

A detail from the museum

This capital depicts a struggle between the good lion and the evil basilisk, a legendary reptile from myth. While the artist would not have encountered the mythical serpent, it is likely he never saw a real lion either based on its cartoonish appearance in this sculpture.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Wixom, William D. “Eleven Additions to the Medieval Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 3 (Mar/April 1979): 87–151.
• Cahn, Walter, and Linda Seidel. Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999.

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.