Tabernacle Relief with Flanking Angels (c. 1480–1500): Art, History and Details

Tabernacle Relief with Flanking Angels (c. 1480–1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Tullio Lombardo (Italian, c. 1455–1532).

The work and its context

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

This relief once framed a tabernacle—a receptacle above and behind an altar for the safekeeping of the Eucharist. The inscription over the doorway, LOCHVS SANCTVS (Holy Place), and below, LAVS DEO (Praise God), confirm the relief’s intended purpose. Originally, a door at center, perhaps in gilt bronze, would have secured the tabernacle. The pose, costumes, and modeling of the flanking angels all suggest the hand of a gifted artist probably working under the influence of Tullio Lombardo, a brilliant Venetian marble sculptor.

Object facts

• Title: Tabernacle Relief with Flanking Angels
• Date: c. 1480–1500
• Creator attribution: Tullio Lombardo (Italian, c. 1455–1532)
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: polychromed marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 81.3 x 108.6 cm (32 x 42 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1975.105

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Annual Report for 1975.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 6 (June 1976): 155–198.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Motture, Peta,Will Webb and Rebeka Cohen. The Culture of Bronze: Making and Meaning in Italian Renaissance Sculpture. London: V&A Publishing, 2019.

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.