This fragment was part of a retable, a frieze installed behind an altar. Depicting Christ and the twelve apostles, it presented the figures in a rhythmic pairing united by an ornately cusped and pinnacled arcade. Represented from left to right are an unidentified apostle and Saint Bartholomew, Saints Andrew and James the Lesser, and Saints John and Peter, who both turn to face the now-missing Christ. The relief is contemporary with the construction of the collegiate church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, begun in 1326. A portion of the retable’s right section is now in the Musée du Louvre.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Six Apostles from Retable
Date:late 14th century
Geography:Made in Beaune, France
Culture:French
Medium:Limestone
Dimensions:Overall: 24 15/16 x 42 1/4 x 3 1/8 in. (63.3 x 107.3 x 7.9 cm) Overall: 164lb. (74.4kg)
Classification:Sculpture-Stone
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1916
Object Number:16.32.169a, b
Georges Hoentschel (French); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York
Pavillon de Marsan, Palais du Louvre. "Les Fastes du Gothique: Le Siècle de Charles V," October 1981–January 1982.
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Les premiers retables (xiie - début du xve siècle): une mise en scène du sacré," April 10, 2009–July 6, 2009.
Olry, Etienne. "Répertoire archéologique des cantons de Haroué et Vézelise." Mémoires de la Société d'Archéologie Lorraine, 2nd series, 8 (1866). p. 178, (supplement with separate pagination).
Collections Georges Hoentschel: Volume 1, Moyen Age et Renaissance. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1908. p. 5, pl. VII.
Breck, Joseph. Catalogue of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance Sculpture. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1913. no. 129, p. 128, ill. p. 129.
Philippe André. "Les retables 'aux douze apôtres'." Le Pays Lorrain 12 (1920). p. 326, n. 1.
Baron, Françoise, ed. Les fastes du Gothique: Le siècle de Charles V. Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 1981. no. 11A, p. 69, ill. p. 70.
Simonin, Pierre. "Retables sculptés gothiques et de la première Renaissance en Lorraine." Lotharingia: Archives lorraines d'archéologie, d'art et d'histoire 2 (1990). no. 3, pp. 222–24, fig. 3.
Baron, Françoise. Sculpture française. I, Moyen âge. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1996. p. 122.
Fuchss, Verena. Das Altarensemble: Eine Analyse des Kompositscharakters früh- und hochmittelalterlicher Altarausstattung. Weimar: VDG Weimar, 1999. pp. 136–37, fig. 87.
Die lothringische Skulptur des 14. Jahrhunderts: Ihre Voraussetzungen in der Südchampagne und ihre ausserlothringischen Beziehungen. Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2005. no. 343, p. 513.
Wixom, William D. "Medieval Sculpture at the Metropolitan: 800 to 1400." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 62, no. 4 (2005). p. 36.
Le Pogam, Pierre-Yves. Les premiers retables (XIIe-début du XVe siècle): Une mise en scène du sacré. Paris: Musée du Louvre Editions, 2009. no. 35a, pp. 138–139, ill. p. 140.
Woods, Kim. "Towards a Morphology of Netherlandish Altarpieces in Alabaster." In Niederländische Kunstexporte nach Nord- und Ostmitteleuropa vom 14. bis 16. Jahrhundert: Forschungen zu ihren Anfängen, zur Rolle höfischer Auftraggeber, der Künstler und ihrer Werkstattbetriebe, edited by Jiri Fajt, and Markus Hörsch. Studia Jagellonica Lipsiensia 15. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2014. p. 43.
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