Twelve Medallions Mounted as a Necklace (c. 1400): Art, History and Details

Twelve Medallions Mounted as a Necklace (c. 1400) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These medallions, which have loops on the backs, must have originally been sewn onto a garment or, more likely, a woman’s headpiece. In spite of the modern chain to which they are now attached, the medallions are unique items of feminine apparel from around 1400. Such items would have been well known at the courts of the Valois in Paris, Bourges, and Dijon. The central medallion with a “white lady” is enameled “in the round”––a new Parisian technique for enameling irregular or three-dimensional surfaces. Such white lady medallions are described in inventories of the period

Object facts

• Title: Twelve Medallions Mounted as a Necklace
• Date: c. 1400
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Jewelry
• Technique: enameled gold, precious stones, and pearls; some later additions with modern chain
• Dimensions: Diameter: 4.5 x 1.6 cm (1 3/4 x 5/8 in.); Part 1: 70.9 cm (27 15/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1947.507

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Taburet-Delahaye, Élisabeth. "Parures et bijoux de la reine Isabeau de Bavière." Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France (Année 2008, 2002): 242–269.
• Detroit Institute of Arts. The Seventh Loan Exhibition; French Gothic Art of the 13th to 15th Century. Nov. 16 to Dec. 5, 1928. [Detroit]: Institute of Arts, 1928.
• La Perle (September 10, 1928).

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.