Fragment of a Capital with the Ox of Saint Luke (c. 1175–1200): Art, History and Details

Fragment of a Capital with the Ox of Saint Luke (c. 1175–1200) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This fragment and two other capitals (1972.20 and 1972.21) were once parts of the same structure. Though the original structure is unknown, their style suggests that it was located in Bologna. As the fragmentary Latin inscription S: LU suggests, the ox represents the traditional symbol in medieval art of the Evangelist Saint Luke.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment of a Capital with the Ox of Saint Luke
• Date: c. 1175–1200
• Culture: Northern Italy, Emilia (Bologna?), 12th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 24.5 x 25.1 x 11.5 cm (9 5/8 x 9 7/8 x 4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Romanesque
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1972.22

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.