Panel from a Chancel Screen

Former TitleSanta Maria de Siponto Altar Front

CultureItalian

Dateca. 1025-1050

MediumMarble

DimensionsOverall: 30 1/4 × 29 1/2 × 2 3/8 inches (76.84 × 74.93 × 6.03 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number49-6

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

The Meetings of Two Worlds: The Crusades and the Mediterranean Context, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, May 9-September 27, 1981, no. 45.

The Glory of Byzantium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 11-July 6, 1997, no. 290.

Gallery Label

This decorative relief was originally part of a low, decorative wall defining the chancel or space surrounding the altar of a church. Its geometric design features a central rosette surrounded by a meandering interlace of six swastikas, forms that were inspired by both Byzantine and Islamic art of the 10th and 11th centuries. This sort of cross-cultural, artistic influence was a natural occurrence in the province of Apulia (the "heel" of the boot of Italy) where this chancel screen originated. For a long time, Apulia was a province of the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, where a vibrant, cosmopolitan culture thrived throughout the Middle Ages.

Provenance

G. Renzo, Fiano, Rome, Italy, by July 12, 1935;

Purchased from Renzo by the dealer Mario Barsanti, Rome, July 12, 1935-1949;

Purchased from Barsanti, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1949.

Published References

Marilyn Stokstad, “Romanesque sculpture in American collections: XV ; Kansas City, Missouri and Lawrence, Kansas,” Gesta 16 (1977): 52-53, (repro.).

Christine Verzár Bornstein and Priscilla Parsans Soucek, The Meeting of Two Worlds: The Crusades and the Mediterranean Context, exh. cat. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Museum of Art, 1981), 70, (repro.).

Helen C. Evans and Willian D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), 450, (repro.).

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