Lyre-Shaped Belt Buckle

Composed of three separately cast elements—tongue, loop, and plaque—this buckle's configuration evokes the designation "lyre shaped." Aside from the tongue, the borders of the lyre design are in the highest relief, and portions of them are chased with diagonal striations. The smooth inner edges of the borders slope down to the depressed areas, which are filled with deeply engraved lines and punched circles that represent highly abstracted foliate designs. The loop is chased with hatching and the end of the tongue with cross-hatching. The recessed reverse of the plate is fitted with five cast lugs for attachment to a now-lost belt.

Lyre-shaped buckles were produced in great quantities throughout the Mediterranean basin. In Spain, cast and chased bronze examples were modeled after Italo-Byzantine gold and silver ones.

Private Collection, Gibralter; [ Ariadne Galleries, New York (sold 1990)]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Mirror of the Medieval World," March 9–June 1, 1999.

Metropolitan Museum of Art. "One Hundred Twenty-First Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1990, through June 30, 1991." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 121 (1991). p. 35.

Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 1990-1991." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 49, no. 2 (Fall 1991). p.14.

Little, Charles T., ed. The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500–1200. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 25, pp. 66–67.

Brown, Katharine R. Migration Art, A.D. 300-800. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995. no. 50, p. 37.

Wixom, William D., ed. Mirror of the Medieval World. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. no. 54A, p. 43.

Brown, Katharine R., Dafydd Kidd, and Charles T. Little, ed. From Attila to Charlemagne: Arts of the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. p. 198, 359, fig. 17.13.