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Box with Busts of Angels
Made at: Limoges (France)
French (Limoges)
Medieval
first half of the 13th century (with modern additions)
Object Place: Europe, Limoges, France
Medium/Technique
Champlevé enamel and gilding on copper
Dimensions
2.5 x 6.6 x 3.7 cm (1 x 2 5/8 x 1 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Leopold Blumka
Accession Number54.1565
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsEnamels
DescriptionRectangular box with trefoil hinge and broken clasp. Enamels are hammered, bent, soldered, champlevé, engraved, enameled, and gilded. The box has a soldered base and interior divider providing two compartments. Sides are a single strip bent at the corners and attached in the middle of the left side. Enamel colors are lapis blue, azure blue, white, red, green, and yellow in single and mixed fields of up to three colors. Reserved and engraved busts of angels with spread wings emerging from clouds (paired on the front and lid and one on each of the short sides) sit against a lapis-blue ground filled with small reserved dots. Angels on the front have green halos with red dots edged in yellow. The other halos are azure blue with red dots and a white border. On the back is a reserved cross pattern on red ground. Reserve bands engraved with an undulating line frame each side. The interior is ungilded.
ProvenanceBy 1905, M. Boy, Paris; May 24, 1905, sold by M. Boy at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, no. 156. By 1954, with Leopold Blumka, Blumka Gallery, New York, NY; 1954, gift of Leopold Blumka. (Accession date: December 9, 1954)