Mounted Rock Crystal (500s-600s): Art, History and Details

Mounted Rock Crystal (500s-600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

When this object was acquired, it was thought to be a container for holy oil or another sacred relic or substance. However, closer examination revealed that the rock crystal prism at the object’s core is completely solid, leaving no room in which to insert such matter. The object’s original function thus remains unclear. It may have served as an amulet, a magical object meant to protect its owner from evil and mishaps.

Object facts

• Title: Mounted Rock Crystal
• Date: 500s-600s
• Culture: Byzantium, Byzantine period, 6th-7th centuries
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: gold, quartz, almandine
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.2 x 1.9 x 1.6 cm (4 x 3/4 x 5/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Byzantine
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1953.640

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M. "Byzantine Goldsmith Work." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art Vol. 44, no. 8 (October, 1954): 190-192.
• Klein, Holger A. Klein, Stephen N. Fliegel, and Virginia Brilliant. 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.