Quatrilobed Plaque (pair): The Annunciation and The Descent from the Cross (c. 1350–1400): Art, History and Details

Quatrilobed Plaque (pair): The Annunciation and The Descent from the Cross (c. 1350–1400) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These plaques were probably originally placed at the end of the arms of a processional cross. They are decorated in an enameling technique called basse-taille in which colorful translucent enamel pastes are fused over an engraved and chased silver plaque.

Object facts

• Title: Quatrilobed Plaque (pair): The Annunciation and The Descent from the Cross
• Date: c. 1350–1400
• Culture: Spain, Catalonia?, 14th century
• Type: Enamel
• Technique: translucent enamel (basse-taille) on silver
• Dimensions: Overall: 8.3 x 8.3 cm (3 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1922.312

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Gothic Art 1360-1440.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 7 (September 1963): 174–215.
• Richter, Rainer. "Between Original and Imitation: Four Technical Studies in Basse-Taille Enameling and Re-Enameling of the Historicism Period." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 7 (1994): 222-51.

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.