Crozier Head with Lamb of God

Like the heads of many medieval croziers, which were seen in processions and during religious ceremonies, the double-sided Lamb of God (or agnus dei in Latin) inside of this volute would have been visible to clerics and laypeople standing on either side of the bishop, abbot, or abbess who carried it. Here, the lamb’s head is encircled with a cruciform halo, which is most commonly used in Christian art for representations of the Resurrected Jesus. A staff topped by a Greek cross is carved on a diagonal between the interior wall of the volute and the lamb’s front hoof.

Several ivory crozier heads attributed to Sicily and the Italian peninsula feature the Lamb of God within their volutes. As a sacrificial animal, the lamb was an Early Christian symbol for Jesus. Several books of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament refer to the Lamb, including the prophetic words of John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), which in turn recall a prophesy from Isaiah 53:7. The triumphal lamb of the Apocalypse is also a proxy for the resurrected Jesus in the Book of Revelation.

The edges of this volute were beveled with a metal file, the tool marks from which are still visible. Greek crosses and scrollwork, originally rendered in gold, ornament the flattened sides of the volute. The lamb’s face and fur were also articulated in gold. The original designs are now worn and appear as negative images, that is, the bright white of the ivory that, having been hidden under paint for many years, never developed a patina. A shaft made of ivory, wood or bone would have slotted in at the base (compare acc. no. 53.63.4).

First published as part of the collection of Russian diplomat Dmitri Schevitch in 1906, this crozier head entered the Museum in 1917 with a large group of objects owned by J. Pierpont Morgan. Its pre-modern history is unknown. Schevitch owned a related example, now in Madrid (Museo Lázaro Galdiano, inv. no. 1584), whose ivory volute bears similar traces of painted decoration but probably includes a post-medieval Lamb of God and dragon head. The sale catalogue for the Schevitch collection identifies both crozier heads as twelfth-century French works, however the iconography, painting, and style of this piece is more consistent with a group of thirteenth-century crozier heads produced in medieval Sicily, possibly by Muslim craftspeople. Following Perry Blythe Cott’s differentiation of these so-called "Siculo-Arabic" croziers from other painted examples, the Met re-attributed this crozier head to northern Italy in 1945. Similar Greek crosses are carved in the volutes of crosiers from the Benedictine abbey of Admont (Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. T.15) and Hildesheim (Dom-Museum, inv. no. DS 74). Carbon-14 dating and scientific analysis of the remaining paint and gold might enable a more precise dating and localization of this unique object.


Catalogue Entry by Nicole D. Pulichene, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022

Dmitri Schevitch, Paris (sold 1906); his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris (April 4–7, 1906, no. 141); Georges Hoentschel (French)(before 1911); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (by 1911–1913); Estate of J. Pierpont Morgan(1913–1917)

"Chronique des Ventes." Le Bulletin de l'Art Ancien et Moderne 298 (April 21, 1906). p. 124, (Schevitch sale no. 141).

Molinier, Emile, ed. Catalogue des Objets d'Art et de Haute Curiosité de l'Antiquité du Moyen-Age et de la Renaissance: Collection de M. D. Schevitch. Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, April 4–6, 1906. no. 141, p. 124.

Pératé, André. Collections Georges Hoentschel: Ivoires, orfèvrerie religieuse, pierres. Vol. 2. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1911. no. 31, fig. XXIV.

Longhurst, Margaret H. Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory. Vol. 1. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1927. p. 59.

Cott, Perry Blythe. Siculo-Arabic Ivories. Princeton: Princeton University, 1939. no. 169, p. 56, pl. 64.

Galán y Galindo, Ángel. Marfiles Medievales del Islam: Volume 2, Catálogo de Piezas. Cordoba: Publicaciones Obra Social Y Cultural Cajasur, 2005. no. 43030, pp. 458, 519.