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Description: | Medieval copper alloy gilded and enamelled panel from the right-hand arm of an altar or processional cross. The mount is shaped like a T on its side and is decorated with a raised design of a winged and nimbate bull (the emblem of St Luke) on a deep blue enamel background within a plain line border. The bull faces left and is rising form a cloud, both wings are raised with the tip of the right one reaching towards the top right corner of the mount and the left wing curved inwards towards the halo. The details of the bull and the wings are picked out with incised lines and show traces of gilding. The halo and cloud contain multicolour enamel where one shade joins to the next within the cell, the halo pale blue encircled by white and the cloud with bands of yellow above green above deep blue above a small area of red in the lower corner.The mount has four attachment holes - two at the corners of the stem of the T and two in the bar, slightly more widely spaced. There are raised rings around each attachment hole and raised annulets in the field near the upper and lower outer corners, probably originally gilded. The annulets are also filled with multicoloured enamel the top has a red centre encircled by green encircled by yellow, echoing the cloud; the lower one has a few central dots of red encircled by pale blue encircled by white, echoing the halo.The back is undecorated. The mount is slightly bent and measures 60.2 mm long, 42.6 mm wide and 1.6 mm thick. It weighs 25.94 gramsOriginally one of a set of four decorative mounts, each one with a winged creature emblematic of the four Evangelists as follows: St Mark - lion; St Matthew - angel; St Luke - bull; St John - eagle. One mount would be attached to each of the arms of the cross. The multicolour enamel is typical of the Limoges industry in France which produced large numbers of high quality gold and copper based enameled pieces and dates to the later 12th or 13th centuries. SF-8AE233 and WILT-45FC93 on this database are similar.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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