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The Treasury of Basel Cathedral
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Foot Reliquary, dated 1450
Basel
Raised, stamped, cast, and partially gilded silver, and engraved and gilded copper, all on a wood core, with translucent émaux de plique, rock crystal, glass stones, and pearls, a garnet, and a mother-of-pearl relief; H. 5 5/8 in. (14.2 cm), L. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm)
Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zurich
Description |
Description
This unusual reliquary bears an inscription on the sole of the foot stating that the vessel originally contained a foot of one of the innocents massacred at the order of Herod and that the relic was given to the cathedral by Saint Columban while the reliquary itself was the gift in 1450 of a certain Oswald (electrotype casts of both sides of the inscribed plate are displayed). This Oswald may be identified with Oswald Walcher, cathedral chaplain and master of the cathedral fabric at the time. The mix of Romanesque aesthetic and later Gothic decorative elements suggests that either an older reliquary was reworked or used as a model and that elements of disparate sources, such as the mother-of-pearl relief and the émaux de plique, were reemployed to create a new, if somewhat eclectic, reliquary.
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