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Plaque with Virgin and Child

A work made of gilt bronze set against a field lapis lazuli, agate, and sicilian jasper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of gilt bronze set against a field lapis lazuli, agate, and sicilian jasper.

Date:

1580/1600

Artist:

Central Italian

About this artwork

Opus sectile, or the art of inlaying stones, was a form of ancient Roman decoration revived during the 16th century in Milan, Rome, and Florence. It was employed for the decoration of tabletops, cabinets, and other ecclesiastical and secular furnishings, and it combined marbles with hard stones like agate, which were much more difficult to cut, to form abstract patterns or images. This plaque would have been a small devotional object for a wealthy household and was probably made in Rome during the last quarter of the 16th century, when there was a revival of such decoration.

Status

On View, Gallery 205

Department

Applied Arts of Europe

Title

Plaque with Virgin and Child

Place

Italy (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1580–1600

Medium

Gilt bronze set against a field lapis lazuli, agate, and Sicilian jasper

Dimensions

36.9 × 24.2 × 2.9 cm (14 1/2 × 9 1/2 × 1 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of The Antiquarian Society

Reference Number

1905.70

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/40680/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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