Lion Aquamanile (1200–1250): Art, History and Details

Lion Aquamanile (1200–1250) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

An aquamanile is a water vessel used for washing hands both at church altars and at the dinner tables of upper-class patrons. They often took the form of fantastic beasts such as dragons and unicorns or animals such as horses, birds, dogs, and lions, like this one.

Object facts

• Title: Lion Aquamanile
• Date: 1200–1250
• Culture: Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim, Gothic period, first half 13th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze: cast, chased, and punched
• Dimensions: Overall: 26.4 x 29 x 15 cm (10 3/8 x 11 7/16 x 5 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1972.167

A detail from the museum

The handle of this vessel is in the shape of a dragon with a long curving tail.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Chester D. Tripp in honor of Chester D. Tripp

Further reading listed by the museum

• May, Helmut. Weltkunst aus Privatbesitz. Köln: Gesamtherstellung: Druckerei J.P. Bachem, 1968.
• Swarzenski, Hanns, Peter Bloch, Tilmann Buddensieg, Alfred Hentzen, and Theodor Müller. Intuition und Kunstwissenschaft: Festschrift für Hanns Swarzenski zum 70. Geburtstag am 30. August 1973. 1973.
• Wixom, William D., Donald F. Gibbons, and Katherine C. Ruhl. "A Lion Aquamanile." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art61, no. 8 (1974)

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.