Processional Cross
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1500 - 1600
Materials
Copper, gilt and wooden core
Measurements
385 x 303 mm
Place of origin
Spain
Order this imageCollection
Ightham Mote, Kent
NT 825386
Summary
A Spanish 16th-century copper-gilt processional Cross, with on the front the Crucified Christ and on the four lobes, at the top, St. John the Evangelist, at the sides the grieving Virgin and St. John, and below an embossed rosette. More rosettes by Christ’s hands and above his head. On the reverse is in the centre the standing Virgin and Child and at the four ends, clockwise from the top, God the Father blessing, Sts. Luke, Matthew and Mark. Cast decorative elements project out from the sides of the Cross, The Cross is mounted on a gadrooned copper-gilt knop with, below it, a tubular holder for a staff. Mounted on a modern wooden base.
Full description
The application to the edges of the Cross of elaborate stylised foliate decoration is characteristic of Spanish Crucifixes, from the fourteenth century onwards. See for example Núria de Dalmases, Orfebreria Catalana Medieval: Barcelona 1300-1500 (Aproximació a l’Estudi), 2 vols., Barcelona 1992, II, nos. 11, 17, 24, 32, 39. See also Crosses from Burgos and Toledo, dated c. 1550 and 1547 respectively, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, in Charles Oman, The Golden Age of Hispanic Silver 1400-1665, London 1968, nos. 55, 61. Jeremy Warren (December 2017)
Provenance
Collection of Richard C. Sneyers, The Refectory, Godalming, Surrey. Bequeathed to the National Trust by R. C. Sneyers in 1988.
Credit line
National Trust Collections (Ightham Mote)