Pyx (c.1300): Art, History and Details

Pyx (c.1300) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A pyx is a container designed to hold the consecrated Eucharist wafers between masses. It was probably used by the clergy to administer communion to the sick and dying; its small size made it easily portable. The decoration relates to similar liturgical objects made in the ecclesiastical and artistic center of Salzburg for the cathedral treasury of that city.

Object facts

• Title: Pyx
• Date: c.1300
• Culture: Austria, probably Salzburg, 14th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver and gilt silver
• Dimensions: Diameter: 4.8 x 7.8 cm (1 7/8 x 3 1/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1970.125

Collection credit

Gift of the John B. Putnam Foundation

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Twelve Additions to the Medieval Treasury.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 59, no. 4 (April 1972): 87–111.

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.