The Arenberg Reliquary Triptych

c. 1300-1320
Meuse Valley, very likely Liège
Cast, chased, engraved and gilded silver with applied pearls, gemstones, and paste gems, fitted with 70 relics in glass fronted silk-lined compartments, each one secured and framed by ornate coiled silver metal-wrapped thread and labelled with inscribed parchment slips ranging in date from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries.
29.2 x 11.2 cm (closed) / 29.2 x 22.5 cm (open).


Provenance
If not made for the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Liège then certainly made for a religious house in the Prince-Bishopric, and most likely donated by an abbess or by a noble patroness;
From thence almost certainly centralized following secularization in the years around 1800 in the holdings of the Cathedral of Saint Paul, Liège;
Presented by the Cathedral Chapter to the benefactor Prosper-Louis, 7th Duke of Arenberg, Aarschot and Meppen, Prince of Recklinghausen (1785-1861) by 1855;
By descent to Engelbert-Auguste, 8th Duke of Arenberg, Aarschot and Meppen, Prince of Recklinghausen (1824-1875);
By descent to Engelbert-Marie, 9th Duke of Arenberg, Aarschot and Meppen, Prince of Recklinghausen (1872-1949);
By descent to Engelbert-Charles 10th Duke of Arenberg, Aarschot and Meppen, Prince of Recklinghausen (1899-1974), until 1951

Exhibited
Brussels, Société de Saint Vincent de Paul, Exposition de tableaux et objets d'art et de Haute Curiosité, ouverte au profit des pauvres, 1855, part 2 (Objets d'art), Salle K, Vitrine E, no. 82 (loaned by the prince d’Arenberg and catalogued as French work, last third 13th century)

 

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Sam Fogg
Art of the Middle Ages