Reliquary in Purse Form (c. 1320): Art, History and Details

Reliquary in Purse Form (c. 1320) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This precious reliquary, adorned on its front and sides with colored glass, precious stones, and two medallions featuring the enthroned Virgin and Child and an eagle, forms part of a group of closely related objects manufactured in the Upper Rhine region shortly after 1300. The purse shape, with its peaked roof and cylindrical top, derives from much earlier Carolingian and Romanesque prototypes. The reliquary was originally suspended from the rings on both sides of the sloping roof.

Object facts

• Title: Reliquary in Purse Form
• Date: c. 1320
• Culture: Germany, Upper Rhine, Southern Swabia, Gothic period, 14th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: copper, gilded and engraved; glass; rock crystal; precious stones; wood core
• Dimensions: Overall: 17.2 x 13.4 x 7.7 cm (6 3/4 x 5 1/4 x 3 1/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1932.422

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "A Viennese Reliquary of the Fourteenth Century." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 20, no. 4 (April 1933): 51-56
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.