Four Ornamental Colonnettes

Unidentified

about 1185

Object PlaceCologne, Germany

Medium/TechniqueChamplevé enamel and gilding on copper (shafts); gilding on brass (capitals and bases)

DimensionsOverall: 24.9 x 3.2 x 3.2 cm (9 13/16 x 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.)

Credit LineEdwin E. Jack Fund

Accession number68.554a-d

On View

On view

ClassificationsEnamels

Collections

Europe

ProvenanceAbout 1185, possibly the shrine of Saints Mauritius and Innocentius, Saint Servatius, Siegburg, Germany (original commission?) [see note 1]. 1968, the Duchess of Mecklenburg (probably Barbara Irene Adelheid Viktoria Elisabeth Bathildis, Princess of Prussia, b. 1920 - d. 1994), Burg Rheinstein, near Bingen, Germany [see note 2]; 1968, sold by the Duchess of Mecklenburg, through Eberhard Schenk zu Schweinsberg, Wiesbaden, to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 11, 1968)

NOTES:
[1] See Nancy Netzer and Hanns Swarzenski, Catalogue of Medieval Objects: Enamels and Glass (Boston: MFA, 1986), pp. 66-67, cat. no. 16. It is not certain that these colonettes came from the shrine, although their design elements are similar. At least four colonettes on the original shrine were replaced around 1902, when Paul Beumers of Düsseldorf restored it.

[2] Eberhard Schenk zu Schweinsberg is said to have discovered the colonettes, adorning a Neo-Gothic wooden box, in the cellar of the Burg Rheinstein. The Duchess of Mecklenburg may have inherited the pieces from the Hohenzollern family collection; Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Hohenzollern, King of Prussia (b. 1796 - d. 1861), for example, was a known collector of similar objects in the 19th century.