COLLECTION MUSEUMS' MASTERPIECES
France, Commemorative art medal, in bronze, 51mm 115grs approx, gilt, in very good condition as scanned, very little surface wear, rim nicks, edge marked "BRONZE DORE OR 24KT" and triangle.
Claus Sluter (1340s in Haarlem[1] – 1405 or 1406 in Dijon) was a Dutch sculptor.[2] He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that came into full flower with the work of Jan van Eyck and others in the next generation.
The name "Claes de Slutere van Herlam" is inscribed in the Register of the Corporation of Stonemasons and Sculptors of Brussels around the years 1379/1380.[3] He then moved to the Burgundian capital of Dijon, where from 1385 to 1389 he was the assistant of Jean de Marville, court sculptor to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. From 1389 to his death he was court sculptor himself, with the rank of valet de chambre. He was succeeded by his nephew Claus de Werve.
Sluter's most significant work is the so-called Well of Moses (1395–1403), or the Great Cross. It was created for the Carthusian monastery of Champmol,
which was founded by Philip the Bold right outside Dijon in 1383. For
many years, the top portion was thought to have included (along with
Christ on a cross), sculptures of the Virgin and John the Evangelist.
However it was more likely just Christ, with Mary Magdalene kneeling at
the foot of the cross.[4]
The cross, and whatever was on the terrace below, was destroyed at some
point after 1736 and before 1789, probable because the roof of the
building protecting the monument collapsed.[5] Some fragments from the original Cross are preserved in the Musée Archéologique de Dijon.
Life-sized figures representing Old Testament prophets and kings
(Moses, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Zachariah, and Isaiah) stand around the
base, holding phylacteries and books inscribed with verses from their
respective texts, which were interpreted in the Middle Ages as
typological prefigurations of the sacrifice of Christ. The work's
physical structure, in which the Old Testament figures support those of
the New Dispensation, literalizes the typological iconography. The
pedestal surmounts a hexagonal fountain. The entire monument is executed
in limestone quarried from Tonnerre and Asnières.
Monumental portal of the Chartreuse of Champmol at Dijon by Claus Sluter
A few steps away from The Well of Moses
one finds the portal of the former mortuary chapel of Champmol. The
portal consists of three sculptural groups by Sluter: a standing Madonna
and Child at the trumeau;
the duke and St. John, his patron saint, at the left jamb and the
duchess and her patron saint, Catherine, at the right one. Sluter was
also responsible for the main part of the work on Philip's tomb,
which (restored and partly reconstructed) has been moved to the Museum
of Fine Arts which is housed in the former ducal palace in Dijon.[6]
Sluter was one of the sculptors of the pleurants, or mourners, which occupy niches below the tombs of Philip the Bold, his wife Margaret, and John the Fearless.
Interests/Themes keywords : Art medal.
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We are professional sellers running a family business, the first in the family who started to sell medals was, about 70 years ago, Maître Albert de Jaeger, he was an Artist, a Sculptor and Medallist he received the Premier Grand Prix de Rome (1935) for his medallic art, he created hundreds of medals and other art objects.
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