Copper-gilt plaque with champlevé enamel decoration.

Copper-gilt plaque with champlevé enamel decoration. The plaque is rectangular in a portrait format, with an arched top. It has a later gilded frame.

The figure of Jonah is shown standing full-length, wearing a full-length robe. He is bald, and bearded, and has a halo. He holds a banner across his chest with a quotation from his book. He stands on stylised rocks/earth, and below his feet is an identifying inscription. He is flanked by foliage decoration in a series of scrolls, diminishing in size towards the top of the panel.

Engraved on the reverse of the panel is the letter E, presumably an assembly indicator. The other plaques from the same reliquary are also engraved with assembly marks.

This plaque was originally part of a circular tabernacle-type reliquary now in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt. The remaining plaques on the reliquary also show Old Testament prophets, surrounded by foliage and holding scrolls, and are of a very similar type. These are as follows:
Obadiah, Amos, Malachi, Haggai, Zephaniah, Hosea, Zacharia.
Another single plaque showing Nahum is in the Schnütgen-Museum, Cologne (see Ornamenta Ecclesiae, cat. no. F54), and 3 others are lost. Gauthier 1972 lists Zacharia as being conserved at the V&A, which is clearly a mistake.
The V&A plaque of Jonah is engraved on the reverse with the letter E, probably a workshop assembly mark to assist craftsmen when putting together the finished reliquary. All the surviving plaques on the reliquary have similar assembly marks.

The reliquary was supposed for a long time to have been made at St Pantaléon, Cologne. Although it has been ascribed to several workshops, including that of Fredericus, and the Master of the Altar of St Gregory, there is general agreement on its Cologne origin, partly because of an inscription on the base which describes it as originally containing relics of St Ursula and her 11,000 virgin followers, who were martyred at Cologne, and strongly associated with the city.

By the end of the 18th century, the reliquary was in the possession of a baron von Hüpsch, of Cologne, and passed into a museum founded, in 1805, by the Grand-Duke Louis I of Hesse-Darmstadt. It is not known when this particular plaque was parted from the rest of the reliquary, but it came into the V&A in 1857.

Eltenberg Reliquary Exhibition R.F.2006/17

This type of reliquary, shaped in the form of a tabernacle, was held to represent a funerary mausoleum and was thus a suitable resting place for the relics contained. Gauthier 1972 points out that the inscriptions on the scrolls held by each prophet are not only quotations from their prophecies, but also part of the funeral liturgy.

The Ornamenta Ecclesiae entry suggests that the strong foliage decoration visible in the background of 4097-1857 and continued over roof and sides of the main reliquary may refer to the tree of life mentioned in Revelation (22:2).

The general agreement is that the main Darmstadt reliquary, from which 4097-1857 comes, was made in Cologne, although there has been discussion about particular workshops, and influences.

It was attributed by Gauthier 1972 to Cologne on the basis of its style and the relics contained within it. Ornamenta Ecclesiae quotes the inscription on the main reliquary which refers to, among other relics, relics of St Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, who were particularly closely associated with Cologne.

Ornamenta Ecclesiae also links the Darmstadt reliquary to the V&A's Eltenberg reliquary (7650-1861) and the similar dome reliquary in Berlin, as well as the St Gregory portable altar at Siegburg, in terms of graphic style, particularly of the foliage, and states that all the group (attributed to the Master of the St Gregory altar) originates in Cologne. The entry on the Nahum plaque in Cologne (another surviving loose plaque from the reliquary) relates the plaque's style to characteristics emerging in the Arnstein Bible from 1160 onwards, and comments on influences from the Mosan region working alongside Byzantinising elements to produce the particular style seen on this reliquary.

Die Zeit der Staufer also links the reliquary/plaques to the Master of the St Gregory Altar through stylistic similarities, particularly the foliage-style, and the placing of the figures within it. The entry also refers to the Arnstein Bible of 1172 (BL.716), as well as a three volume Passionale also originating from Arnstein (BL.Harl.2800-2802). It links the plaques also to a set of seated prophets, exhibited in The Year 1200, New York, 1970, cat. no. 183, which have similar vestment style.

Lasko 1972 links the reliquary to the Master of the St Gregory Altar in terms of foliage decoration, but says that the prophets themselves are clearly by another master, with a greater appreciation of three-dimensional form, and the effects of light and shade.

Swarzenski 1967 dates the plaque to about 1160, and attributes it to Cologne, as does Creutz 1911 (who specifies the workshop of Fredericus) - the latter is not specific as far as date is concerned.

This plaque was originally part of a circular tabernacle-type reliquary now in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt. The remaining plaques on the reliquary also show Old Testament prophets, surrounded by foliage and holding scrolls, and are of a very similar type. The V&A plaque of Jonah is engraved on the reverse with the letter E. This is a workshop assembly mark to assist craftsmen when putting together the finished reliquary. All the surviving plaques on the reliquary have similar assembly marks.

The reliquary was supposed for a long time to have been made at St Pantaléon, Cologne. It has been ascribed to several workshops, including that of Fredericus, and the Master of the Altar of St Gregory, but there is general agreement on its Cologne origin, partly because of an inscription on the base which describes it as originally containing relics of St Ursula and her 11,000 virgin followers, who were martyred at Cologne, and strongly associated with the city.

This type of reliquary, shaped in the form of a tabernacle, was supposed to represent a funerary mausoleum and was thus a suitable resting place for the relics contained. The inscriptions on the scrolls held by each prophet are not only quotations from their prophecies, but also part of the funeral liturgy.

4097-1857