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Thursday, 27th November, 1913
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2010
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1914
References
page 6 note 1 Vetusta Monumenta, vol. vii.
page 8 note 1 It may be mentioned that Mr. Borradaile at the same time deposited a number of rare and important pieces of English porcelain.
page 8 note 2 Acquired at the Magniae sale in 1892, lot 251. Length, 22 inches. Probably the horn exhibited by Mr. Magniac at the special exhibition of works of art of the medieval, Renaissance, and more recent periods, South Kensington, 1862. (Catalogue, edited by J. C. Robinson, no. 213, p. 18.)
page 9 note 1 For oliphants see E. Molinier, Ivoires, p. 93, and Musée national du Louvre, Cat. des ivoires, 1896, pp. 63–4 ; C. Cahier, Nouveaux mélanges d'archéologie, ii, 1874, p. 35 ; F. Bock, Ueber den Gebranch der Hörner im Alterthum, etc., in Milletalterliche Kunstdenkmale des österreichischen Kaiserstaates, edited by J. Heider and R. Eitelberger, 1862, vol. ii, pp. 126 ff.; J. Hampel, Alterthümer des frühen Mittelalters in Ungarn, ii, pp. 888 ff., and various references there given.
page 9 note 2 Reproduced in Poole and Hugall's guide to York Cathedral; cf. also Archaeologia, i, 187.
page 10 note 1 Cf. O. von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Scidenweberei, 1913, i, p. 18. In addition to the antique mosaie pavements, North Italian examples of the eleventh century may be compared. Cf. especially that of the cathedral of Cremona, E. Ausʼm Weerth, Der Mosaikboden in St. Gereon zu Cöln, pl. vi.
page 10 note 2 Round the mouth, the order is as follows : eagle, lion, gryphon, large bird, gryphon, lion ; the eagle forming the mid-point, and flanked by the lions and gryphons, which face towards it.
On the body of the horn, beginning nearest the broad end, we have, in the first row : a cock, flanked on each side by the familiar device of confronted birds drinking from a vase, beyond which are two contiguous circles, each containing a dragon with interlaced body biting its own tail, while a smaller subsidiary head, which goes off at a tangent, bites a tendril of the vine. The second or middle row contains a gryphon, flanked by two winged lions, beyond which are two circles, each with a regardant bird. In the third row, at the narrow end, an eagle is flanked by two birds, while behind, in a circle of greater diameter than any other, are two confronted lions rampant and regardant, two paws raised high over their heads, two crossed below their breasts (fig. 2).
In the treatment of many of the beasts there is an element of the grotesque ; the tails are foliated and bitten by their owners, and in some cases twisted. Both quadrupeds and birds frequently carry leaves in their mouths. It may be noted that the cock appears on the horn at Angers (Cahier, as above, p. 35) and is found on early Persian textiles.
page 10 note 3 Von Falke, as above, ii, p. 16.
page 10 note 4 Lasting in Italy into the high Middle Ages. Cf. H. von der Gahelentz, Mittelalterliche Plastik von Venedig, 1903, p. 71. The birds are generally peacocks, but in the present case lack the usual crests.
page 10 note 5 Quite a near parallel to the dragons on the horn occurs on the cross from Gosforth in Cumberland, assigned to the beginning of the eleventh century, or even earlier. (Collingwood in Victoria County History, Cumberland, vol. i, p. 263 ; Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires du Nord, 1884–1889, p. 17 ; cast in the Victoria and Albert Museum.) Cf. also the font at Chaddesley-Corbett (F. Bond, Fonts and Font-covers, p. 53.) The appearance of these knotted dragons upon the oliphant makes us instinctively think of Scandinavia ; the invention of such devices should not, however, be ascribed to Northern art without further investigation. It is probable that interlacings as a whole were first borrowed from the South by the barbaric tribes at the time of the great migrations (Von dor Gabelentz, as above, pp. 77 ff., 89), and that some of the grotesque features in beastornament, such as the knotting of the body, multiplication of heads, etc., were introduced by peoples in more immediate contact with late-Roman and Byzantine civilization than the Scandinavians ever were. A monster with a knotted body is carved on a capital in the atrium of S. Ambrogio at Milan (F. de Dartein, Étude snr l'architecture lombarde, Atlas, pl. xliii), which some consider as early as the ninth century, though others put rather later (Cattaneo, Architecture in Italy, English edition, 1896, p. 247) ; and on the gold crosses found in Lombard graves the interfacings sometimes end in beast-heads (Von der Gabelentz, p. 78). When we find dragons with interlaced bodies in the Mohammedan art of the twelfth century and a little later (Van Berchem and Strzygowski, Amida, pp. 83–4 and figs. 30–4 : reliefs on Aleppo gate of Diarbekr, citadel gate of Aleppo, coins of Qara Arslan), on copper coins of Mohammed II of Turkey, and in medieval MSS. from Servia, Bulgaria, and Bohemia (V. Stassoff, L'Ornement-Slav, pl. vi, viii, xxii, etc.), it becomes probable that this style of ornament did not start in the north of Europe but in some more central region.
page 11 note 1 After the fall of the Empire in the West, Graeco-Roman art rapidly lost the ground which it still held, and the popular beast-ornament, already existing but not officially recognized, broke loose and ultimately covered half the world. With the more decided trend to orientalism in Byzantine art which iconoclasm encouraged, a new impetus was given to a movement destined to continue until the rise of Gothic art.
page 11 note 2 W. G. Collingwood, in V. C. H. Yorkshire, vol. ii, p. 111. At present no photographic illustration of this cross is published.
page 11 note 3 On a capital in Ste-Radegonde at Poitiers (Vitry and Brière, Documents de sculpture françhise du Moyen Age, pl. xxix, fig. 2).
page 11 note 4 Thus practically the same design may be found on Coptic and Sassanian reliefs or stuffs, on Byzantine objects of the middle period, in ‘Saracenic’ art, in early-medieval sculpture, mosaic-pavements and minor works of art, in Northern Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, and the British Isles.
page 12 note 1 Both horns are described and reproduced by Hainpel, as above, vol. ii, pp. 889 ff., and iii plates, 532 ff.
page 12 note 2 The birds, both in type and in the manner in which they hold leaves in their mouths, recall those on the early cedar chest at Terraeina, an object which some are inclined to place as early as the eighth or ninth century, and for which an oriental origin is probable (J. Strzygowski, Das orientalische Italien, in Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. i, Leipzig, figs. 8–10 ; A. Muñoz, L'Art by zantin à l'exposition de Grottaferrata, p. 181 (1906) ; A. Venturi, Storia dell' arte italiana, ii, figs. 83–5). It is interesting to note that points of resemblance exist between this coffer and the Jasz Berény horn ; while at the same time it suggests affinities with the Franks casket in the British Museum (Catalogue of Ivory Carvings, no. 30). A further analogy to the beasts of pre-Carolingian illuminated manuscripts should be noted. Lions with twisted tails which they bite, very similar to those on the horn, are to be seen in an Augustine on the Heptateuch, formerly at Corbie, and dating from the eighth century (Comte A. de Bastard, Peintures et ornements dcs manuscrits, etc., abbreviated edition, pl. 21). The same manuscript has beasts holding leaves in their mouths.
page 12 note 3 The panel, which is 6 in. high, was in the Keele Hall Collection and exhibited at Manchester in 1857 and Leeds in 1868. An example of a similar style is the panel from a triptych with the Virgin and Child in the Stroganotf Collection at Rome (H. Graeven, Elfunbeinwerke in photographischer Nachbildung, Italian Series, no. 68). The Deesis occurs on other Byzantine ivories at Berlin, Liverpool, in the Vatican, etc.
page 13 note 1 Of the well-known saints it is unnecessary to say anything here. SS. Cyrus and John were martyred in Egypt, and are usually represented together (see Acta Sanctorum, Jan. 31): their day is January 31. St. Cyrion belongs to a group of martyrs who suffered at Alexandria on February 14 ; he is described as a priest. St. Barbara is not commonly found in minor Byzantine works of art : in this sphere her popularity may not have equalled that attained in the West in the fifteenth century ; but she is a saint of oriental origin, her legend was widely diffused in Syria and in other parts of the East, and she occurs in the Menologium of Basil 11 (fol. 224), as well as in monumental art, e. g. in the mosaics of the Monastery of St. Luke of Stiris in l'hocis (Schultz and Barnsley, p. 50). St. James the Persian is seen on the Harbaville triptych (E. Molinier, Ivoires, p. 100) on the exterior of the right leaf.
page 13 note 2 It was acquired by Mr. Borradaile in 1905–0, the story being that it came from a convent at Reims.
page 13 note 3 Another feature which might at first sight be urged against the triptych is that the leaves are fastened by hinges, instead of by pins working in cavities in projecting ledges of the central panel—the usual Byzantine method. But if this point were made a test of falsity, the ‘Triptych d'Harbaville’ in Paris, the classical example of the Byzantine ivory-carver's art, would also be false. The existing hinges, as well as the silver pin fastening the leaves when closed, are modern.
page 14 note 1 Magniac Collection, lot 257. Height, 6¾ in.
page 14 note 2 For these devotional tabernacles, or tableaux cloans, as a class, see R. Koechlin in A. Michel's Histoire de l'art, ii, p. 475.
page 14 note 3 Iconographically this Virgin and Child are regarded as forming part of the Adoration scene, the kings alone appearing on the leaf.
page 14 note 4 The diptych, which is 4¾ high, does not seem to have formed part of any large collection.
page 14 note 5 For this group, see British Museum Catalogue of Ivory Carvings, pp. xlv, xlvi.
page 15 note 1 e. g. those in the Debruge Dumenil and Maskell Collections.
page 16 note 1 9½ in. high. From tlie Keele Hall Collection. Shown at the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester, in 1857 (figured by J. B. Waring, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1858, Plates, Metal-work, pl. i, no. 2), and at the Loan Exhibition at South Kensington in 1802 (Catalogue, as above, no. 1009, p. 57).
page 16 note 2 The initials stand for [Oleum] Infirmorum, Oleum [catechumenorum], and Chrisma. These indicatory letters are subject to some variation. The oil of the infirm is constant as I or OI. But that of the Catechumens may be rendered by S, because it is also described as oleum sacrum ; while the Chrism may be indicated by SC (Sanctum Chrisma). See G. Helleputte, Revue de l'art chrétien, 1884, p. 147.
page 17 note 1 p. 119.
page 17 note 2 The date suggested in the Loan Exhibition Catalogue, viz. second half of the thirteenth century, appears to be too late. Similar filigree on a reliquary at Quedlinburg is dated to the period 1184–1203 (de Vasselot, J. Marquet, Monuments Piot, vi, 1889, 183)Google Scholar.
page 17 note 3 Magniae Sale Catalogue, no. 792, exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1901 and at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1896. Formerly Leben Collection, Cologne.
page 17 note 4 This part may be compared with the top of a fourteenth-century ciborium at Aix-la-Chapelle (E. Ausʼm Weerth, Kunstdenkmäler des christlichen Mittclalters in den Rheinlanden, Album, pl. 38, fig. 5).
page 18 note 1 No. 787. Reproduced by de la Motte, P., Choice Examples of Art Workmanship Selected from the Exhibition of Ancient and Mediaeval Art at the Society of Arts, London, 1851Google Scholar.
page 18 note 2 Revue de l'art Chrétien, as above, p. 152, where examples are reproduced ; see also p. 454 ff. A good illustration of a priest using a single chrismatory for extreme unction occurs in an early Netherlandish drawing in the manner of Rogier van der Weyden in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (Burlington Magazine, xxiv, plate opp. p. 224, B. January 1914).
page 18 note 3 Maguiac Collection, no. 644, shown at the South Kensington Loan Exhibition in 1862 (Catalogue, as above, no. 1064, p. 68). In the Magniac Catalogue, Mr. Middleton suggests about 1520 as the date, while Mr. Robinson in the Loan Catalogue gives the period from 1500–40.
page 18 note 4 ‘An exceedingly beautiful crystal sceptre, richly set in gold with pearls, and enamelled. A very curious and interesting relic from Lady Elizabeth Germain's Collection, and presented to Horace Walpole by his niece, Lady Temple.’
page 19 note 1 Catalogue of the noble collection of pictures, etc., of the Right Hon. Lady Eliz. Germain. Langford's, Wednesday, March 7, 1770:
‘Lot 53. A chrystal sceptre enriched with pearls, enamellings, etc.”
page 19 note 2 Lady Elizabeth was born in 1680 and died in 1769. She was the second daughter of Charles, Earl of Berkeley, and married Sir John Germain, whose first wife had been Duchess of Norfolk. It was this lady who possessed the collection of gems made by Thomas Howard, second Earl of Arundel (1585–1640), the great collector of pictures, antiquities, and other works of art, which on her death passed to her second husband. Sir John left it to Lady Betty, and she presented the greater part to Lady Mary Beauclerk, her great-niece, who married Lord Charles Spencer, brother of the third Duke of Marlborough. The Arundel gems ultimately came into the possession of the Dukes of Marlborough and were sold in 1899.
page 20 note 1 Cf. Pulszky, Radisics, and Molinier, Chefs-d'œuvre d'orfevrerie ayant figuré à l'exposition de Budapest, i, pp. 89, 139; ii, pl. 69, 87. Die historischen Denkmüler Ungarns, ii, p. 234.
page 20 note 1 Among these names occur those of two natives of Trau in Dalmatia, Giovanni Dalmata and Jacopo Statilic. Cf. Die historischen Denkmäler Ungarns, ii, pp. 291 ff.
page 20 note 8 Pulszky, Radisics, and Molinier, as above, ii, p. 134 ; Die historischen Denkmäler Ungarns, ii, p. 209. The Calvary shows a similar juxtaposition of Gothic and Renaissance features, as does the well-known cross at Florence made by Pollaiuolo and Betto for the Baptistery of that city.
page 21 note 1 For a Cantor's baton it would be too shorty as these objects appear to bave been several feet in length.
page 21 note 2 Cf. Victor Gay, Glossaire archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, s.v. Bâtox d'offices.
page 21 note 3 Formerly in the Spitzer Collection (La Collection Spitzer, vol. i, p. 121, no. 79). The cross shows signs of restoration.
page 22 note 1 G. E. C[okayne], Complete Peerage, vol. v, pp. 263–6.