This ensemble, probably from a book cover, can be securely attributed to the celebrated pilgrimage abbey of Conques, France’s richest surviving repository of medieval goldsmiths’ work. Among the rare works dispersed from its treasury in the nineteenth century, several share a distinctive technique, style, and palette uniquely combined during the abbacy of Bégon III in the late eleventh century. The monkgoldsmiths have here superimposed copper plaques, the lower one set with cloisons (wires) that define features and drapery, and the upper one cut to define the silhouettes of the figures and the cross. Scientific analysis has confirmed that these works share common enamel compositions (including the unusual ox-blood color used for the symbol of Saint Luke and the hair of the image of the Sun [“Sol”] above the Crucifixion) and the same metallic oxides in their opacifying and tinting.
