A rare Romanesque Limoges champlevé enamel and gilt reliquary casket, so-called "chasse" First half 13th century

house-shaped, the front side applied with two rectangular plaques worked with The Murder of Thomas Becket and his Entombment, the end panels worked with two saints, possibly apostles, each holding a tome of the gospel, the associated back panel worked with three further apostles each within a mandorla, the heads in relief and applied, the upper-plaque of different type and worked with lozenge-shaped tiles, the comb replaced, the core of walnut, the underside painted red, hinges replaced, bearing exhibition labels, loss of enamel in the lower frontal plaque and the rear lower plaque around the respective edges

Mr. Cardon, circa 1900

Exposition Rétrospective, Bruxelles 1900, inscribed 2(?)448, Cardon

Related Literature:
Caudron 1975, pp. 233-241

Gauthier 1975, pp. 247-53

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered on 29 December 1170 on the orders of King Henri II of England. Shortly afterwards miracles were reported and in February 1173, Thomas Becket was canonized.  The martyrdom became a higly popoular subject on Limoges reliquary caskets of which fifty-two are recorded in the Corpus des Emaux Meriodonaux.  The first casket is thought to be the large Becket chasse made between 1180 and 1190, which was sold by Sotheby's London in July 1996 and which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. That chasse probably contained the relics of St. Thomas at Peterborough Abbey and it is believed that all the caskets originally would have contained relics. Caudron and Gauthier suggested that these caskets were related to fundraising for the conversion of the martyr into a new shrine, a  project which was completed in 1220.