Pilgrim's Flask with Saint Menas (400–600 CE): Art, History and Details

Pilgrim's Flask with Saint Menas (400–600 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These flasks bear the image of Saint Menas, an early martyr of the Christian Church whose shrine was in the desert southwest of Alexandria in Egypt. These flasks were probably used by pilgrims to hold oil taken from the lamp that burned over this saint's tomb. Probably manufactured near the shrine, pilgrim's flasks often bear decorations hinting at their place of origin, as is the case here.

Object facts

• Title: Pilgrim's Flask with Saint Menas
• Date: 400–600 CE
• Culture: Egypt, Coptic period
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: terracotta
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.2 x 6.6 x 2.3 cm (4 x 2 5/8 x 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Byzantine
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1999.230

Collection credit

Gift of Bruce Ferrini in memory of Robert P. Bergman

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Rare Chinese Paintings, Baroque Porcelain Plaque and Other New Acquisitions Exhibited with Hanging Scrolls,” December 20, 1999, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• 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.
• Bagnoli, Martina. Treasures of heaven: saints, relics, and devotion in medieval Europe. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2010.

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.