Capital, carved limestone, south-eastern France, Romanesque, ca. 1150

Carved at the corners with scrolls, with rosettes between on two sides. Beneath are two tiers of acanthus leaves, the tops of which curl over. The tops of the acanthus leaves on the bottom tier are missing.

Given by J.H. Fitzhenry, Esq.

Given to the museum by J.H. Fitzhenry, 1910 Bought by the donor in Paris, 1909.

Although visually similar to capital A.11-1910 the two works are by different masons. The two capitals are of the same dimensions and shape and share a tautness and graphic intensity in the treatment of their plant-form which distinguishes them from their classical models.
Another similar capital can be found in the Jewett Art Centre, Wellesley College, Massachusettes which has been assigned to Provence or northern Italy and given a date in the middle of the twelfth century by Walter Cahn. Paul Williamson has identified capitals of similar proportions but of finer quality, which were orginally from the upper cloister of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert and are now mostly in the Cloisters Collection of The Metropolitan Museum in New York. This similarity has led to an attribution to south-eastern France possibly Languedoc. This capital is also likely to have originated from a cloister.

The cloister, usually a covered walkway or ambulatory surrounding a quadrangle, with a plain wall on the one side, and a series of windows or an open colonnade on the other, was a monastic adaptation of the old Roman atrium. The walkway provided a means of communication between the various parts of a monastery, and the word cloister became a synonym for the monastic life. The word is the English equivalent of the Latin word clausura (from claudere, "to shut up"). This word occurs in Roman law in the sense of rampart, barrier, [cf. Code of Justinian, 1. 2 sec. 4; De officiis Praef. Praet. Africae (1, 27), 1. 4 De officiis mag. officiorum (I, 31)]. In the "Concordia Regularum" of St. Benedict of Aniane, c. xli, sec. 11, we find it in the sense of "case", or "cupboard" (Migne, P.L., CIII, 1057). In modern ecclesiastical usage, clausura signifies, materially, an enclosed space for religious retirement; formally, it stands for the legal restrictions opposed to the free egress of those who are cloistered or enclosed and to the free entry, or free introduction, of outsiders within the limits of the material clausura.

South-eastern France

This capital was probably one of a series from a cloister. Cloisters were courtyards with covered walkways, usually located next to the church, in which monks and the clergy could study and meditate. Acanthus leaf decoration was probably popular because of its association with ancient Roman ornament.

A.12-1910