Oliver Cornish
Sale Coordinator for Furniture, Sculpture, Rugs & Tapestries
Lot 33*
A rare French gilt copper and champlevé enamel book or Evangeliary cover depicting the Crucifixion Limoges, circa 1190-1200
3 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£20,000 - £30,000
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Helena Gumley
Head of Sale Carpets and Tapestries
A rare French gilt copper and champlevé enamel book or Evangeliary cover depicting the Crucifixion
Limoges, circa 1190-1200
The figure of Christ in relief, flanked by the Virgin Mary on the left and Saint John the Evangelist on the right; with two angels flanking the cross at the top, and below the cross; the mounds below the cross invoke Golgotha, whilst the background is adorned with bands of colour and rosettes; the cross engraved with 'I.H.S. XPS'; Christ figure applied, heads of the angels, the Virgin and St John applied; losses to the enamel, 21cm high x 10cm wide
The figure of Christ in relief, flanked by the Virgin Mary on the left and Saint John the Evangelist on the right; with two angels flanking the cross at the top, and below the cross; the mounds below the cross invoke Golgotha, whilst the background is adorned with bands of colour and rosettes; the cross engraved with 'I.H.S. XPS'; Christ figure applied, heads of the angels, the Virgin and St John applied; losses to the enamel, 21cm high x 10cm wide
Footnotes
Provenance
Charles André Stévenin (French, b. 1879, d. Argentina, 1968), probably from the collection with his first wife Marie-Louise Barbet (b. 1886, d. 1934) of the Barbet de Jouy family. Thence by family descent. Private Collection, Minneapolis, USA.
Exhibited:
Goldsmithing & Other Applied Arts, National Museum of Decorative Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 1965, Cat. no. 12, collection of André Stevenin.
Limoges enamel book covers were crafted to protect bound biblical manuscripts, their brilliance, arguably, rivalling the illuminated pages they encased. The earliest recorded reference to a Limoges champlevé enamel, in fact, concerns a book cover. In a letter dated 1169 from a priest at Saint-Satur in England to the prior of the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, the priest recalls a Limoges binding they had admired together (Abbé Arbellott).
The iconography of Limoges book covers is confined to two principal themes: the Crucifixion and Christ in Majesty. Surviving examples indicate that the Crucifixion most commonly appears on the front cover, while the reverse typically depicts Christ in Majesty. The present lot would originally have adorned a precious liturgical book and would probably have been paired with a representation of Christ in Majesty.
Indeed today's example is characteristic of Limoges production at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century in a number of ways. The structural composition and the colour palette, the reserved, punched and chased figures with heads applied separately and of classical type are typical of a small group of Limoges enamels produced around 1200.
Today's lot relates closely to other examples, two preserved in the Louvre (OA 10016- MRR 249), one in the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris illustrated in the recent publication on Limoges enamels by Antoine, GaboritChopin and Gauthier (loc. cit., VB, n°37), one in the Kier Collection and one from the Gillot collection (Christie's Paris, 4 March 2008, lot 222). These examples have the same blue background decorated with green crosses, turquoise horizontal bands, and touches of red and the four.
However, as per today's example, the heads of the four figures on the sides are applied in relief (as is the figure of Christ as the Gillot example cited above) The five heads in the Keir collection are applied, while the one in the Louvre and Petit Palais have no applied relief.
Related Literature
M. M. Gauthier, Emaux limousins champlevés des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe siècles, Paris, 1950; E. Taburet-Delahaye, L'oeuvre de Limoges. Emaux limousins du Moyen Age, exh. cat. Paris, New York, 1995-1996, p. 280, no. 88; M.-M. Gauthier, É. Antoine, and D. Gaborit-Chopin (eds.), Corpus des émaux méridionaux. Tome II. L'apogée 1190-1215, Paris, 2011, pp. 207-211. M.-M. Gauthier, Les Reliures en émail de Limoges conservées en France : recensement raisonné in Humanisme actif: Mélanges d'art et de littérature offerts à Julien Cain, 2 vols., Paris, 1968, I, p. 285. M.-A. Carlier, Art du Moyen Age, XI-XIVé siècle, exposition 12 sept- 31 oct- 2012, Brimo de Laroussilhe, Paris, 2012, ill. 14, pp. 52-53.