Capital with an Architectural Frieze

CultureFrench

Datemid-12th century

MediumLimestone

DimensionsOverall: 13 1/8 × 23 1/4 × 23 3/8 inches (33.34 × 59.06 × 59.37 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number48-39

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

N/A

Gallery Label

This capital, carved on all four sides with a band of curling acanthus leaves and an elaborate architectural frieze, once surmounted a rectangular pier. Though its place of origin is undocumented, the capital has stylistic features in common with sculpture from the Burgundian Abbey of Cluny. The use of drilled, ornamental holes in the impost's palm fronds, for instance, is also seen in fragments of the abbey's choir screen of c. 1150/80 (now Musée Ochier, Cluny). The architectural frieze closely resembles that on another fragmentary capital presumed to come from Cluny (now Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Universtiy), which probably was carved in the same workshop as the present example.

Provenance

With Paul Botte, Paris, France, by November 6, 1935;

Purchased from Botte by Brummer Gallery, Paris and New York, stock no. P12118, as Capital “La Jérusalem Céleste”, November 6, 1935-August 10, 1948 [1];

Purchased from Brummer Gallery by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1944.

NOTES:

[1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Cloisters Library and Archives, Brummer Gallery Records, Renaissance terra-cottas, Object inventory card number P12118.

Published References

Marilyn Stokstad, “Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections. XV. Kansas City, Missouri and Lawrence, Kansas,” Gesta 16, no. 1 (1977): 51, (repro.), as Capital.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 132, (repro.), as Capital with an Architectural Frieze.

Walter Cahn, Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections, vol. 2, New York and New Jersey, Middle and South Atlantic States, the Midwest, Western and Pacific States (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999), 215, (repro.), as Capital. Burgundy.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 36, (repro.), as Capital with an Architectural Frieze.

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