BYZANTINE MARBLE RELIQUARY WITH PILLARS

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ANCIENT ART & ANTIQUITIES

By Apollo Art Auctions

Oct 9, 2022

Set Reminder 2022-10-09 07:00:00 2022-10-09 07:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : ANCIENT ART & ANTIQUITIES https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/apollo-art-auctions/ancient-art-antiquities-10431
Apollo Art Auctions is delighted to present a magnificent 9th of October 2022 sale of Ancient Art & Antiquities. The sale is divided into three sections: Classical and Egyptian, Masterpieces of Ancient Asia and Medieval Antiquities and Ancient Weaponry. Apollo Art Auctions enquiries@apolloauctions.com

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• Lot Description
  Ca. 300-900 AD A drum-shaped marble chest in the form of a tholos surrounded by eight columns with simple capitals, arcades between the pillars with elegant openwork foliate tracery; each tiered capital with a vertical socket for the attachment of a lid; the interior showing tooling. Reliquaries were containers for storing and displaying relics, such as bones, pieces of clothing or an object associated with a saint or other religious figure, in a church from the early Christianity onwards. Starting from the simple forms of chests in late Antiquity, they developed to various types depending on the relics they contained. During the Reformation, a large number of reliquaries were destroyed by Calvinists and as a result the number of original, especially early specimens, is limited. Interestingly, our reliquary has a hole in its bottom, which can be related to the practice of pouring oil into a container of relics of a saint or saints, which was then collected into pilgrim flasks. See Boehm, B.D., 'Relics and Reliquaries in Medieval Christianity' in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York, 2000; Abou-El-Haj, B., The Medieval Cult of Saints: Foramations and Transformations, Cambridge, 1994; Bagnoli, M. et al. eds., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, Cleveland, 2010; Weitzmann, K. ed., Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, New York, 1979, no.569-575. Item comes with a professional historical report from Ancient Report Specialists. Size: L:250mm / W:375mm ; 25.35kg Provenance: Property of a London gentleman; before that in the private collection of a Kensington collector; acquired in Austria in 1993; previously in the Trimbacher collection; formerly acquired in Germany in 1980.
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