Plaque from a Chasse for Relics of Saint Thomas Becket (1220–25): Art, History and Details

Plaque from a Chasse for Relics of Saint Thomas Becket (1220–25) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master G. Alpais (French); Workshop.

The work and its context

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

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was brutally murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. The immediate popularity of Becket’s cult is reflected in the large number of enamel reliquaries produced in late 12th- and early 13th-century Limoges workshops to house relics associated with the archbishop, who was canonized only three years after his death. This plaque, which pairs a scene depicting the Martyrdom of Thomas Becket with one of Christ’s Crucifixion, once formed the principal face of such a reliquary.

Object facts

• Title: Plaque from a Chasse for Relics of Saint Thomas Becket
• Date: 1220–25
• Creator attribution: Master G. Alpais (French); Workshop
• Culture: France, Limousin, Limoges, Gothic period, 13th century
• Type: Enamel
• Technique: copper: gilded and engraved; champlevé enamel
• Dimensions: Overall: 16.9 x 28.5 x 0.5 cm (6 5/8 x 11 1/4 x 3/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1951.449

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Gauthier, Marie-Madeleine, Geneviève François, Elisabeth Antoine, and Danielle Gaborit-Chopin. Émaux méridionaux: catalogue international de l'œuvre de Limoges. 1987.
• Migeon, Gaston "La Collection de M.G. Chalandon" Les Arts (June 1905).
• Milliken, William M. “A Champlevé Enamel Plaque.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 1 (1952).

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.