Abstract
The ivory casket in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, depicting an emperor and empress blessed by Christ and a selection of scenes from the life of David, is one of the few surviving major works from the period immediately after a centuries-long hiatus in Constantinopolitan ivory-carving. It has been given a wide variety of dates and places of origin, but it is identified here as a work made for the emperor Leo VI and assigned to 898 or 900, a little more than a decade after the “scepter tip” in Berlin, also supposedly made for the emperor. The circumstances under which the casket’s inscriptions and figures were partially recarved have contributed not a little to misunderstanding of the original state of the object. This reworking, it is suggested, was undertaken in Rome, in the circle of the Jesuit savant, Athanasius Kircher.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 77-87 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | The Art Bulletin |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1 1988 |
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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Visual Arts and Performing Arts
- History
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An Imperial Byzantine Casket and Its Fate at a Humanist’s Hands. / Cutler, Anthony; Oikonomides, Nicolas.
In: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 70, No. 1, 01.03.1988, p. 77-87.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - An Imperial Byzantine Casket and Its Fate at a Humanist’s Hands
AU - Cutler, Anthony
AU - Oikonomides, Nicolas
PY - 1988/3/1
Y1 - 1988/3/1
N2 - The ivory casket in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, depicting an emperor and empress blessed by Christ and a selection of scenes from the life of David, is one of the few surviving major works from the period immediately after a centuries-long hiatus in Constantinopolitan ivory-carving. It has been given a wide variety of dates and places of origin, but it is identified here as a work made for the emperor Leo VI and assigned to 898 or 900, a little more than a decade after the “scepter tip” in Berlin, also supposedly made for the emperor. The circumstances under which the casket’s inscriptions and figures were partially recarved have contributed not a little to misunderstanding of the original state of the object. This reworking, it is suggested, was undertaken in Rome, in the circle of the Jesuit savant, Athanasius Kircher.
AB - The ivory casket in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, depicting an emperor and empress blessed by Christ and a selection of scenes from the life of David, is one of the few surviving major works from the period immediately after a centuries-long hiatus in Constantinopolitan ivory-carving. It has been given a wide variety of dates and places of origin, but it is identified here as a work made for the emperor Leo VI and assigned to 898 or 900, a little more than a decade after the “scepter tip” in Berlin, also supposedly made for the emperor. The circumstances under which the casket’s inscriptions and figures were partially recarved have contributed not a little to misunderstanding of the original state of the object. This reworking, it is suggested, was undertaken in Rome, in the circle of the Jesuit savant, Athanasius Kircher.
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U2 - 10.1080/00043079.1988.10788546
DO - 10.1080/00043079.1988.10788546
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84886123482
VL - 70
SP - 77
EP - 87
JO - Art Bulletin
JF - Art Bulletin
SN - 0004-3079
IS - 1
ER -