1st Edition
Enamels, Crowns, Relics and Icons Studies on Luxury Arts in Byzantium
By Paul Hetherington
Copyright 2008
328 Pages
by
Routledge
This volume gathers together 17 articles published over the last 30 years, together with one appearing here for the first time. Their focus is primarily on enamel, the brilliant and colourful art form for which the Byzantines were famous throughout the medieval world, but sculpture and glyptics also figure. The author examines not only works which have retained the form in which they were first created, but others which have had their original Byzantine elements re-used, often by artists in the West. While most of the works featured here have been known to scholars before, one was unknown prior to its first publication in 2006.
Contents: Preface; Byzantine cloisonné enamel: production, survival and loss; Enamels in the Byzantine world: ownership and distribution; The jewels from the crown: symbol and substance in the later Byzantine imperial regalia; La couronne grecque de la sainte couronne de Hongrie: le contexte de ses émaux et de ses bijoux; Byzantine and Russian enamels in the treasury of Hagia Sophia in the late 14th century; Byzantine enamels on a Venetian book cover; A purchase of Byzantine relics and reliquaries in 14th-century Venice; Vecchi, e non antichi: differing responses to Byzantine culture in 15th-century Tuscany; Studying the Byzantine staurothèque at Esztergom; Byzantine enamels for a Russian prince: the book-cover of the Gospels of Mstislav; The enamels on a mitre from Linköping cathedral, and art in 13th-century Constantinople; Who is this king of glory? The Byzantine enamels of an icon frame and revetment in Jerusalem; The gold and enamel triptych of Constantine proedros; The frame of the Sacro Volto icon in S. Bartolomeo degli Armeni in Genoa: the reliefs and the artist; The Byzantine enamels on the staurothèque from the treasury of the Prieuré d'Oignies, now at Namur, (with excursus:pearls and their assiciation with Byzantine enamels); The Cross of ZáviÅ¡ and its Byzantine enamels: a contribution to its history; Byzantine steatites in the possession of the Knights of Rhodes; A well-head in Iznik: an example of Laskarid taste?; Addenda; Index.
Biography
Paul Hetherington is an independent scholar, specialising in the study of Byzantine art.
