Cresting from a shrine, copper-gilt, double-sided representation of two male figures, Cologne, ca.1200

The copper-gilt cresting consists of a double-sided representation of two bearded male figures, in combat with a dragon, entwined with plant forms. Both figures lean back in their struggle, clutching at the surrounding foliage. The dragon's body is covered in scales, and its mouth is open grasping at the hand of the lefthand figure. They stand on a flat base, with a beaded edge on the front. Although there is definitely a front side (the dragon and the main figure both face this way), the decoration is continued on the reverse in a simple form, and the reverse is also gilded.
The object is cut off at the left-hand end, with flat exposed ends visible. There is a circular hole in the base on the right-hand end. On the underside, which is not gilded, rivets are visible, holding the cresting to its base.

Bought by the V&A in 1860 for £25.

This section of cresting has obviously been removed from a larger object - probably a shrine. Large, gilded shrines, usually shaped like a long building with pitched roof, were produced all over Europe to house the bones of important saints - they were a particular speciality of the Cologne area in the later 12th century. They could combine gilded metal with enamelled decoration, as well as jewels, crystal, and even antique cameos, and usually had decorative cresting along the top gable, and also down the edge of the sloping sides each end.

The V&A fragment is not truly double-sided - there is a definite front, and although the reverse is fully-fashioned and gilded, the figures face outwards, and there is no beaded decoration along its edge. For this reason, it is unlikely to have formed part of the gable cresting on a shrine, and is more likely to have decorated a sloping edge, where the reverse (though not totally covered) was less visible.

The Year 1200 catalogue entry compares the V&A fragment to cresting on the shrines to St Anno (St Michael's church, Siegburg) and St Albinus, the English St Alban (St Pantaleon Schatzkammer, Cologne). Like these, it has a continuous frieze-like action (as opposed to the system of repeating medallions enclosing figures or groups found in other shrine crestings, eg The Three Kings shrine (Cologne Cathedral)). Another contrasting system of shrine cresting had repeated plant motifs, sometimes with small-scale crystal finials (eg shrine to St Maurinus (also from St Pantaleon Schatzkammer, Cologne)).

An illustration of the sloping cresting of the Shrine of St Albinus can be found in a colour photograph of the end of the shrine in Ornamenta Eccesiae, Cologne, 1985, cat. E80, p.299. The cresting has similar dragon-like animals to the V&A fragment, though no human figures. It is also relatively three-dimensional like the V&A fragment, unlike the gable cresting on the same shrine, which is far flatter. And like the V&A fragment, it has beaded decoration along its lower edge, while the gable cresting does not. But it seems rather more crisp than the V&A piece.

The V&A fragment has been linked to cresting on the shrines to St Anno (St Michael's church, Siegburg) and St Albinus (the English St Alban) (St Pantaleon Schatzkammer, Cologne) in the catalogue entry for The Year 1200. While they are both similar in overall type to the V&A fragment, the St Anno cresting is less similar in style, and the St Albinus cresting (complete by 1186 (Ornamenta Ecclesiae, pp.302-3)), though superficially similar, is finer in quality.

Links to Nicholas of Verdun, or a leading master from his workshop, have been suggested for both these shrines (F. Müthernich, Die Ornamentik der rheinischen Goldschmiedekunst in der Stauferzeit, Würzburg, 1940, pp.62.ff; Ornamenta Ecclesiae (Cologne, 1985, vol. 2, E80, pp.302-3)).

This section of cresting, showing two figures fighting with a dragon, has obviously been removed from a larger object - probably a shrine. Large, gilded shrines, usually shaped like a long house with pitched roof, were produced all over Europe to house the bones of important saints - they were a particular speciality of the Cologne area in the later 12th century. They could combine gilded metal with enamelled decoration, as well as jewels, crystal, and even antique cameos, and usually had decorative cresting along the top gable, and also down the edge of the sloping sides each end. The V&A fragment is not truly double-sided, and it is therefore more likely to have decorated a sloping edge, where the reverse (though not totally covered) was less visible.

Inhabited vine scrolls (ie scrolling plant forms, populated with human figures and fantastical creatures) were a classical motif that remained popular intermittently throughout the Middle Ages, and was rediscovered particularly in the later 12th century. They appear frequently in illuminated manuscripts as well as metalwork, and the appearance of this sort of non-religious imagery in a religious context was extremely common.

7237-1860