Reliquary Monstrance with the Hallmark of Barcelona
Unknown · 1350-1415
Over eighty centimetres tall, the monstrance is a miniature Gothic building in gilded silver made to display a relic. The oblong foot is cut into eight lobes, alternately semicircular and ogee-curved. From it rises a six-sided stem with buttresses at its base framing Gothic windows filled with plaques of translucent enamel. Halfway up, a knop shaped like a fortified enclosure sprouts volutes ending in capitals that carry two large angels with spread wings, each holding a torch. Between them stands the reliquary itself, a structure longer than it is wide, with six pointed gables sheltering traceried windows backed by enamelled silver plaques and separated by strongly projecting buttresses.
Punched on the foot is the mark BARCK, the hallmark of Barcelona, which places the work in the Catalan capital between thirteen fifty and fourteen fifteen, when its goldsmiths were among the most sophisticated in Europe and Catalan translucent enamel on silver rivalled that of Paris and Italy. The monstrance belonged to Baron Adolphe de Rothschild, whose bequest of nineteen hundred and one brought a whole treasury of medieval and Renaissance goldsmiths' work to the Louvre.
Did You Know? A tiny punched mark on the foot, reading BARCK, is the only signature the monstrance carries, and it names a city rather than a maker.
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