BARBARA BOEHM: "If I had to pick one object in our collection that would really convey what 14thcentury art was all about, court art, it would be this shrine, which we call the shrine of Elizabeth of Hungary…"

NARRATOR: Barbara Drake Boehm, Curator in the department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters.

BARBARA BOEHM: "…At the center of the reliquary is an image of the virgin preparing to nurse the Christ child. She’s flanked on either side by a figure of an angel… The angels hold little boxes and the boxes have small relics of saints or things associated with the saints …It’s like a little miniature chapel-- a little miniature church with the virgin and the angels at the high altar. And the scenes on either side like small stained glass windows rendered in enamel. …. It’s a rather distinctive style that this artist uses…very special kinds of engravings of the faces, this kind of receding hairlines almost and slightly weak chins, very bright vibrant colors…If you’re able to look up above the head of the virgin by peering around, you can see that the roof over her head has…gothic ribs. It's really just like what you would see overhead in a real gothic cathedral… It is…from the convent of the Poor Clares in Buda, which is present day Budapest….where it was recorded in an inventory, very early on, and associated with Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. Now Elizabeth of Hungary was the founder of the shrine of the Poor Clares and…it is logical that she may have given this piece because she gave a number of pieces and things to that convent…"