Northern Italian, circa 1200

Professor Dr H.O. Goldschmidt (1920-2009), Eindhoven;

With Blumka Gallery, New York, 2006;

From whom acquired by Dr Ernst Boehlen, Bern

Collecting Treasures of the Past V, cat. Blumka Gallery, Julius Böhler, New York, 2006, no. 33

This Romanesque bronze censer is a fine example of the architectural, as opposed to the spherical, type. It takes the shape of a small temple, which recalls Heavenly Jerusalem. The craftsman and writer Theophilus Presbyter’s (1070-1125) Schedula diversarum atrium prescribes that the ideal form for a censer is the Heavenly City itself, and explains the preferred use of an architectural form and detail for these objects. A near-identical censer, which was excavated near Genoa and dated to the 12th or early 13th century, is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (inv. no. 67.292). Another similar example is the famed 12th-century Gozbert censer in the Cathedral Treasury in Trier, which is more elaborate in its design and probably slightly earlier in date.

RELATED LITERATURE

N. Netzer, Catalogue of medieval objects. Metalwork, cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1991, pp. 80-81, no. 15; B. Drake Boehm and M. Holcomb (eds.), Jerusalem, 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2016, p. 273-274, fig. 98