Appliqué figure of Christ
France, second half of the twelfth century
Provenance
Eugène Piot collection; Victor Martin Le Roy collection; Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot collection.
Exhibitions
Literature
Marquet de Vasselot, J.-J., Catalogue raisonné de la collection Martin Le Roy, I, Orfèvrerie et émaillerie, Paris, 1906, pp. 29–30, nº15, pl. XIII.
Study
Christ is represented with his eyes closed. His long hair is parted in the middle and flows behind his ears before dividing into separate locks across his shoulders. His face is marked by relatively strong nose and high cheekbones, and his closed mouth is framed by a downturned moustache that flows into the curls of his beard. Christ’s perfectly frontal pose is disrupted only by his head, which falls towards his right shoulder. This relaxation of the head, the prominent ribs and particularly swollen abdomen bear witness to the Incarnation of Christ, who has died on the Cross.
The treatment of the perizoneum (loincloth) reveals an accomplished sense of ornament. Decorated with a series of three identical embroidered bands, it matches the rounded form of the thighs, which can be intuited under the taut fabric, only draping itself into fine pleats where it falls from the knotted parts, in the middle and in the sides, at hip level. This appliqué statuette was evidently torn violently from its supporting cross, causing the loss of the arms and a powerful twisting of the feet, which rest on the narrow suppedaneum (footrest). In the publication devoted to the collection of his father-in-law Victor Martin Le Roy, Marquet de Vasselot associated the figure of Christ, formerly in the Piot collection, with two bronze figures of Apostles now in the Louvre, where they are housed with a third Apostle formerly in the Piet-Lataudrie collection, and belonging to the same series.1 Marquet de Vasselot pointed out that there was nothing to prove that the three bronzes from the Martin Le Roy collection came from the same group, but he believed that they were sufficiently uniform in style to be placed together. It is now clear that the figure of Christ cannot belong to the same series as the Apostles housed in the Louvre, which have a more accentuated drapery, a very specific treatment of the eyes, and thinner limbs, as may be perceived under the clothing covering them.
Plate from Marquet de Vasselot, J.-J., Catalogue raisonné de la collection Martin Le Roy, I, Orfèvrerie et émaillerie, Paris, 1906.
Within the domain of Romanesque gilt bronzes there is no true point of comparison with the Christ formerly in the Eugène Piot collection. It could be said that the figure’s face has a certain resemblance to the Apostle from the Piet-Lataudrie collection in its slightly pronounced nose, narrow mouth, the attention drawn to the ears and the treatment of the beard; but such comparisons remain superficial.
Likewise, the emphatic frontal quality of the Christ and slightly rounded treatment of the legs could be compared to those of the Christ in the Boy collection, also in the Louvre.2 But there too, possible comparisons end with these simple elements: the far more animated description of the perizoneum, and the face, imbued with an expression of profound suffering, are indicative of a very different spirit.
The absence of meaningful parallels reveals the originality of gilt bronzes made in France during the mid-twelfth century. The few great French Christ figures in this medium which have come down to us are for the most part—like the work studied here – particularly original works, somewhat isolated, and in this respect quite distinct from the more serial production of this type of object in German workshops of the same period.
See Marquet de Vasselot, J.-J., Catalogue raisonné de la collection Martin Le Roy, I, Orfèvrerie et émaillerie, Paris, 1906, pp. 29–30, nº15, pl. XIII. For the appliqué figure from the Piet-Lataudrie collection, see Gaborit-Chopin, D. (ed.), La France romane au temps des premiers Capétiens (987–1152), exhib. cat. (Paris, musée du Louvre, March 10–June 6, 2005), Paris, 2005, p. 131, nº86.
