Kneeling Prophet from the Reliquary Chasse of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1409): Art, History and Details

Kneeling Prophet from the Reliquary Chasse of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1409) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean de Clichy (French); Gauthier du Four (French); Guillaume Boey (French).

The work and its context

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

This figure is one of only two known surviving fragments of the Reliquary Châsse of Saint-Germain. Fashioned from silver, gold, and precious stones, it was designed to hold the body of the saint. A contract from 1409 gives the names of the commissioned goldsmiths: Jean de Clichy, Gautier du Four, and Guillaume Boey.The reliquary was housed in the ancient Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris and formed the monastery’s great treasure until it was destroyed in the French revolution. The exquisite modeling of the prophet, originally a supporting foot of the reliquary, reveals the sophistication of Paris around 1400.

Object facts

• Title: Kneeling Prophet from the Reliquary Chasse of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
• Date: 1409
• Creator attribution: Jean de Clichy (French); Gauthier du Four (French); Guillaume Boey (French)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: gilt bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 13.8 x 9.3 x 8.7 cm (5 7/16 x 3 11/16 x 3 7/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1964.360

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Golden Anniversary Acquisition,” 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Stechow, Wolfgang. "Cleveland's Golden Anniversary Acquisitions." Artnews 65, no. 5 (September 1966): 30-64.

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.