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Stavelot, Belgium - 2023

#stavelot #belgium #photography #travel #castle #manor #house #urbex #abandoned #urban #nikon #photographer

Unknown master - Details from the Châsse de saint Remacle de Stavelot (c. 1250 - 1260)

Photography by Torsin, Jean-Louis, IRPA (1996)

#last supper #resurrection #crucifixion #stavelot #Unknown #sculpture #reliquary #compilation #art

Brady & Chewie in Stavelot, Belgium. . . . . . (at Stavelot) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKWC6DanMJz/?igshid=cj7gliwzyvkx

AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ART LXII

THE ALTON TOWERS TRIPTYCH

The region between the Rhein and the Meuse rivers (roughly southern Belgium and Luxembourg) was the major northern center for copper-enameled metalwork in the 12th century. Mosan ciboria, candlestick, altars, reliquaries, croziers, pyxes and crosses figured prominently in the church treaures of northern France, the Low Countries, England and the German empire.

The so-called Alton Towers triptych consists of three enameled plaques manufactured in the Mosan region around 1160. As it is presently configured with closing wings, the work appears to be a portable altarpiece or devotional triptych. Neither of those genres existed, however, in the 12th century. Mosan metalworkers produced portable altars and reliquary triptychs but purely pictorial works that served as backdrops to the performance of the Mass were unknown.

Excursus: The material object provides little evidence of its original appearance. In the 19th century, it was in the collection of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a collector of medieval art and supporter of the Gothic Revival. (The triptych is named after the earl’s neo-gothic country house in Staffordshire, Alton Towers, which is now an amusement park). Parts of the current frame and the hinges date from a Victorian restoration. The survival of the all the semi-precious stones in the border is unlikely—another sign of the restorer’s hand. The Alton Towers triptych resembles another Mosan object, the Stavelot Reliquary Triptych now in the Pierpont Morgan Library. The Stavelot Triptych is essentially an elaborate frame for the display of two Byzantine reliquaries of the True Cross. While medieval reliquaries were often composite objects, the Morgan triptych shows signs of post-medieval alterations. Until a recent restoration, the central panel had a red velvet background, a sign of a 19th-century intervention (the current gold ground represents contemporary conjecture about the original). Whatever its original form may have been, the Mosan enameled roundels depicting six scenes from Invention of the True Cross legend seem likely to have been part of a reliquary of some kind.

The iconography of many Mosan liturgical objects is drawn from the allegorical or typological interpretation of scripture that expounds the mystical relationship of the old and new testaments. For example, the three scenes from the Passion of Christ depicted on central panel of the Alton Towers triptych are matched with Old Testament prefigurations on the left and right panels. The iconographic programs for these works were probably dictated by a learned representative of the commissioning institution.

Diagrammatic structures and schemata are often employed to facilitate the comprehension of this erudite content. The framing roundels of the Alton Towers triptych are linked by banderoles and color-coded to indicate various relationships. To be able to execute these complex structures, which often were accompanied by versified Latin inscriptions, the artists must have been at least rudimentarily instructed in this form of biblical exegesis. This instruction, however, only went so far: the Latin inscriptions the monumental Klosterneuburg Altar by Nicholas of Verdun contain many errors probably introduced by semi-literate artists who copied, rather than read, Latin.

Alton Towers Triptych, c. 1160, London, Victoria & Albert Museum.

Stavelot Portable Altar, c. 1150, Brussels, Museum Kunst & Geschiedenis.

St Omer Cross Foot, c. 1170, St Omer, Abbaye de Saint Bertin.

Stavelot Reliquary Triptych, c. 1160, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library.

#medieval art #mosan art #champlevé #enamel #metalwork #goldsmith #orfevrière #alton towers #stavelot #belgium

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