Reliquary of the True Cross with Sliding Lid
Unknown (Byzantine and Mosan) · Eleventh century (reliquary); c. 1160-1170 (frame and lid)
A flat box with a lid that slides off to reveal the relic inside: this is the classic Byzantine form of the staurotheke, a container for a fragment of the True Cross. The inner panel, of gilded silver worked in relief and engraved, is the Byzantine part. It shows a cross-shaped cavity, now empty, with the Virgin and Saint John on either side as at the Crucifixion and two angels in the upper corners. Look at the cross: it was originally a double-armed Byzantine cross and was cut down to a single-armed Latin cross when the relic changed hands.
That change happened in the Meuse valley around 1160 to 1170, when the panel was enlarged with a frame of scrolling foliage, brightly coloured champlevé enamels alternating with filigree and gems, and given a lid on which the same filigree and stones form a cross. A catalogue of 1851 records the tradition that a Flemish lord brought the relic back from Constantinople after the Crusades and gave it to an abbey near Liège. It belonged to the collector Victor Martin Le Roy, who gave it to the Louvre with his wife in 1913.
Did You Know? The cross-shaped cavity was shortened from a double-armed Byzantine cross to a Latin cross when the relic reached western Europe.
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