SPANISH, POSSIBLY SILOS, OR FRENCH, LIMOGES, THIRD QUARTER 12TH CENTURY | PAIR OF PLAQUES WITH MYTHICAL BIRDS

Adolphe (1871-1949) and Suzanne Stoclet, Brussels;

thence by descent;

private European collection

This rare pair of plaques with elegant exotic birds relates to a presumed early Aquitain workshop in Spain, at whose centre is the important Altar Frontal from the Abbey of St. Dominic at Silos, which was under royal patronage. The Silos Frontal, now in the Museo Arqueologico, Burgos, is adorned with plaques showing closely comparable birds within stylised foliate tendrils in the same colour scheme. Several further individual plaques have been associated with Silos, including three roundels in the Musée du Louvre (inv. nos. OA 11794-11796), which were formerly in the Augusta Lambert and Adolphe Stoclet collections. Some stylistically analogous works, such as a plaque with Christ in Majesty in the Cluny Museum (inv. no. Cl. 13070), have however been catalogued as either Spanish or Limousin (Taburet-Delahaye and Boehm, op. cit., no. 12). An intriguing feature of one of the present plaques is the partial engraving seen on its reverse, which indicates that it was used as a trial piece.

RELATED LITERATURE

M. M. Gauthier, Emaux Méridionaux: Catalogue international de l'oeuvre de Limoges, Vol. 1, L'époque romane, Paris, 1987, pls. XLIX-LIII, pl. LVIII, and pl. LXXII; E. Taburet-Delahaye and B. D. Boehm (eds.), L'Oeuvre de Limoges: Emaux limousins du Moyen Age, exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, and Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1995, pp. 90-97