Collection record · Belief & ritual
Incense Burner and Stand for an Altar Cross
The collection record classifies this work as metalwork. It is dated 1150–75. Recorded culture or place: Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim?, Romanesque period, 12th century.
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A closer look at the details.
- Museum title
- Incense Burner and Stand for an Altar Cross
- Date
- 1150–75
- Culture / origin
- Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim?, Romanesque period, 12th century
- Materials and technique
- bronze: cast, gilded, engraved, and chased
- Dimensions
- Overall: 18.2 x 11.4 x 12.3 cm (7 3/16 x 4 1/2 x 4 13/16 in.)
- Artist / maker
- Not specified by the museum
- Museum
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession number
- 1926.555
FROM THE MUSEUM
In the museum’s words
The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.
Supported by dragon-shaped feet on its corners, this unusual object is fashioned like a small, centralized church with gabled roofs, a lantern crowned by a turret, and four semi-circular apses. Traces of soot on the interior walls of a nearly identical object in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin indicate that these objects once served as incense burners. The objects’ design with an open turret in the center of the roof further suggests that they may have doubled as stands for altar crosses. The fact that both objects formerly belonged to the Bouvier Collection in Amiens may be taken as an indication that they were made as a pair in the same 12th-century workshop.
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Text and image sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund · CC0
The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.
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