Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Bernward Cross
Not on view
This selectively gilded silver crucifix is among the most precious surviving works from the Ottonian era. Christ is sensitively rendered, his body hanging heavily to emphasize his suffering. The work was possibly a processional cross adapted as an altar cross in the fourteenth century, when its base was made. Inscriptions on its back identify Bishop Bernward as patron and list the now-lost relics that were contained in a cavity in Christ’s body.
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