Monstrance with the "Paten of Saint Bernward" (c. 1180–1190): Art, History and Details

Monstrance with the "Paten of Saint Bernward" (c. 1180–1190) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Saint Oswald Reliquary Workshop (German).

The work and its context

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

Designed to facilitate the display and veneration of ten relics, this sumptuous ostensorium (from the Latin ostendere, meaning "to show") is one of the most unusual reliquaries in the Guelph Treasure. Elements of contemporary Gothic architecture in miniature frame an elaborately decorated liturgical paten, the shallow disc or plate used for the elevation of the Eucharist during Mass. Fragments of the True Cross are enclosed behind a rock crystal in the gable, while other saintly relics, each wrapped in silk and identified by inscriptions, are visible only from the back. The paten is inscribed on its outer rim with the words "The bread which is broken in me is the body itself. He who receives it in good faith shall live in eternity." Another inscription surrounding the image of the enthroned Christ at the paten's center, reads, "Behold, o men, I have thus redeemed you with my death." Symbols of the four Evangelists and personifications of the four cardinal virtues complete the paten's iconographic program.

Object facts

• Title: Monstrance with the "Paten of Saint Bernward"
• Date: c. 1180–1190
• Creator attribution: Saint Oswald Reliquary Workshop (German)
• Culture: paten: Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim; monstrance: Germany, Lower Saxony, Brunswick, Gothic period, paten: 12th century; monstrance: 14th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver, gilded silver, niello, rock crystal
• Dimensions: Overall: 34.5 x 15.9 x 14 cm (13 9/16 x 6 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.); Part 1: 13.5 cm (5 5/16 in.); Part 2: 34.3 cm (13 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1930.505

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund with additional gift from Mrs. R. Henry Norweb

Further reading listed by the museum

• W. M. M. “The Acquisition of Six Objects from the Guelph Treasure for the Cleveland Museum of Art: Foreword.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 9 (November 1930): 163–165.
• W. M. M. “The Acquisition of Six Objects from the Guelph Treasure for the Cleveland Museum of Art.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 9 (November 1930): 165–178, 183.
• Milliken, William. "A Niello Book Cover of the Fifteenth Century." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 6 (June 1952): 119-121.

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.