Votive or Civic Badge with a Crowned Figure Kneeling before Christ (c. 1300): Art, History and Details

Votive or Civic Badge with a Crowned Figure Kneeling before Christ (c. 1300) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This brooch was probably made to fasten a ceremonial cloak, and may have been intended as a diplomatic gift or memento. The central composition parallels the main face of the famous gold coin, a ducat, of the Venetian Doge Giovanni Dandolo minted in 1288-1289. Unlike the coin, the medallion is neither struck or diecast; it is tooled and chased, making it one of a kind.

Object facts

• Title: Votive or Civic Badge with a Crowned Figure Kneeling before Christ
• Date: c. 1300
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: gold repoussé medallion under glass inset within a bronze clasp
• Dimensions: Overall: 3.4 x 2.4 cm (1 5/16 x 15/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1985.61

Collection credit

Gift of the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art in honor of Mrs. Norman S. Jeavons

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1985.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 2 (February 1986): 26–71.
• Winter, Patrick M. de. “Recent Accessions of Italian Renaissance Decorative Arts, Part I: Incorporating Notes on the Sculptor Severo Da Ravenna.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 3 (March 1986): 74–138.

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.