14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

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Medieval Art
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14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Medieval Art »

Object is height 29cm, at the back some markings.
I have no info about these makings.
Does anyone has suggestions?
dognose
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by dognose »

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Medieval Art
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Medieval Art »

Problems posting the photos, here are some links:


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dognose
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by dognose »

Image

Image

Trev.
Sasropakis
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Sasropakis »

It would be helpful to see photos of the whole item to judge whether it's indeed medieval or not. To me the surface looks more like silver plated and there seem to be suspiciously many hallmarks for a medieval item.
Medieval Art
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Medieval Art »

Here is a link to the item.

Image
(admin edit)

There is a very similar example of the same workshop in an important Foundation in Switserland. That one has no markings.

Object is vetted by different experts and they all agree on the age, 13th -14th century.

The markings can be of a later date. Import - customs,... I have really no idea.

I searched in next book:
Rosenberg, Marc
Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen (Band 4): Ausland und Byzanz

But I did not find anything similar.
Sasropakis
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Sasropakis »

That's an interesting looking item indeed. That kind of reliquaries were made in medieval time and if you have shown it to experts then it's most likely medieval and the patina seems consistent too. I'm not familiar with medieval hallmarking practices but my guess would be that the marks could be some kind of inventory or owner's marks and possibly struck later. I don't know if such marks are recorded in litterature unless they are by a well established institution like a cathedral or monastery. This is just guessing from my part but hopefully someone else can enlighten you about the matter.
Medieval Art
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Medieval Art »

Thanks you for your reply.
I think it's going to be pretty hard to find out.
It is a good thinking track that these are owner marks.
Was this done often? Why did they place the same marks double?
Sasropakis
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Re: 14th century reliquary head with these markings. Please help identify them.

Post by Sasropakis »

I've seen some owner's marks used in the 18th and 19th centuries to mark sets of flatware. I don't mean properly engraving a crest or initials which was more usual but simply punching a stamp (for example a heraldic symbol) to the items. A bit like libraries used to stamp their books. Sometimes when the first punch wasn't good enough a second was made next to it. In your item it looks like that the other punches are weaker so I thought maybe this was the explanation for the double markings. And in the old days they weren't always that careful when dealing with old objects.
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