Head of an Apostle from the South Portal of the Cathedral of Thérouanne (c. 1235–1240): Art, History and Details

Head of an Apostle from the South Portal of the Cathedral of Thérouanne (c. 1235–1240) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These monumental stone heads are among the substantial known remains of the sculptural program of Thérouanne’s cathedral, which was razed to the ground by Emperor Charles V of Spain in June of 1553. These heads were found in a wall of rue Ste. Croix in the town of Saint Omer (a short distance to the north) in January 1923. This group of sculptures from the gable of the south portal of Thérouanne, which includes a stylistically related Christ as Judge, is recorded to have been moved to the Cathedral of Saint Omer in 1554. With their deeply carved wavy hair, curly beards, wrinkled foreheads, and ponderous facial features, these imposing heads--even in their now fragmentary and weathered state--attest to the powerful monumentality of the stone sculpture covering French church facades of the Gothic period.

Object facts

• Title: Head of an Apostle from the South Portal of the Cathedral of Thérouanne
• Date: c. 1235–1240
• Culture: Northern France (Pas-de-Calais), Thérouanne, 13th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: oolitic limestone
• Dimensions: Overall: 41.9 x 30.4 x 32.4 cm (16 1/2 x 11 15/16 x 12 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1978.56

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1978.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 1 (January 1979): 3–48.
• Wixom, William D. “Eleven Additions to the Medieval Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 3 (Mar/Apr 1979): 87–151.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holger A. Klein. Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007.

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.