German, Brunswick
From the treasury of the Church of Saint Blaise

Circular Monstrance with Dome, late 14th century

Silver gilt and crystal
H. 40.6 cm (16 in.)
Kate S. Buckingham Endowment, 1938.1957

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut; Berlin, Deutsche Gesellschaft; New York, Reinhardt and Goldschmidt Galleries; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art); the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Detroit Institute of Arts; The Art Institute of Chicago; and San Francisco, The M. H. de Young Museum, The Guelph Treasure, 1930-1931 (at Art Institute of Chicago, March 31st to April 20th, 1931), cat. 61.

Art Institute of Chicago, Medieval Decorative Arts from Chicago Collections, October 2, 1985-January 5, 1986.

Publication History

G. W. Molanus, Lipsanographia sive Thesaurus sanctarum Reliquiarum Electoralis Brunsvico-Luneburgicus (Hanover, 1697), no. 54.

W. A. Neumann, Der Reliquienschatz des Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg (Vienna, 1891), no. 57, p. 284 (ill.).

O von Falke, R. Schmidt, and G. Swarzenski, The Guelph Treasure: The Sacred Relics of Brunswick Cathedral Formerly in the Possession of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Frankfurt am Main, 1930), pp. 91-92, no. 61, pl. 96.

Meyric. R. Rogers and Oswald Goetz, Handbook to the Lucy Maud Buckingham Medieval Collection, (Chicago, 1945), no. 38, pl. 36.

Patrick M. De Winter, The Sacral Treasures of the Guelphs, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, 1 (March 1985), p. 141, no. 57.

Patrick M. De Winter, Der Welfenschatz: Zeugnis sakraler Kunst des Deutschen Mittelalters (Hanover, 1986), p. 173, no. 57.

Ownership History

From the treasury of the Cathedral of Saint Blaise, Brunswick (Braunschweig), where it remained until the late 16th century; by descent through the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, to Duke Ernst August II of Cumberland, before 1929; [treasury objects were brokered for sale by a consortium of dealers based in Berlin and Frankfurt: Julius F. Goldschmidt, Z. M. Hackenbroich, and Saemy Rosenbaum]; sold to Kate S. Buckingham in 1931 for $3,000 [according to annotation in museum's copy of the Chicago exhibition catalogue]; bequeathed to the museum upon her death.