Shield from the Antler of an Elk

Carved from the antler of an elk (Alces alces). Radiocarbon (C14) analysis by Prof Dr J. van der Plicht, Groningen University, Center for Isotope Research, produced a date range of 975-1020 AD.

One of the antler’s tines has broken off and been restored. Another tine has been replaced (19th century?). Possibly at this time, the more recessed sections of the shield were given a brownish tone. Small suspension holes can be discerned in three tines.

…; ? funerary chapel of Emperor Louis the Pious (778-840), old abbey of Saint-Arnoul, Metz; ? transferred to the new abbey of Saint-Arnoul, Metz, 1552;¹¹After the destruction of the old Benedictine abbey of Saint-Arnould in Metz by Emperor Charles V’s troops in 1552, Louis the Pious’s remains and sarcophagus were transferred to the abbey’s new location within the confines of the nearby Dominican abbey, which as a result was now in the hands of the emperor and the Benedictines. There a new funerary monument for Louis was to be built, likewise housing the furnishings from the interior of Louis’s former funerary chapel. Possibly included among these items was the present elk antler. See I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge­, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01_, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 24 (with ill.). Louis’s funerary monument was again moved in 1672, due to the renovation of the abbey church’s high altar. sold, with other items from the imperial funerary chapel, 1792/93;²²I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01_, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 25.…; collection Philippe-Antoine Paguet (1768-1854), Metz, before 1834;³³E. Bégin, Guide de l’étranger à Metz, Metz 1834, p. 245. inherited by Caroline Barbe Carré de Malberg-Colchen, Metz, 1854; ⁴⁴I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01_, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 25. Philippe Antoine Paguet died childless, leaving his collection to the children of his niece, Marie Charlotte, daughter of his sister, Elisabeth Charlotte. Marie Charlotte (1803-1885) married Dominique François Victor Colchen (d. 1867) in 1826. Together they lived on the Place des Charrons in Metz. The couple’s son, Marie Etienne Léon Colchen (1837-?), was designated as Paguet’s universal heir. Upon entering the Dominican order, however, he was obliged to relinquish his right of inheritance, which then was reassigned to his sister, Caroline Barbe. It was ultimately her husband, Jacques-Paul Carré de Malberg, whom she had married in 1849, who organized the sale of Paguet’s collection at Drouot after the death of his father-in-law in 1867. With thanks to Pierre-Édouard Wagner, Metz, for this biographical information. See also J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. p. 373. sale, Paguet collection, Paris (Drouot), 8 and 9 February 1867, no. 2, Ffrs 8,550, to the dealer Joseph-Henri Delange, Paris; ? from whom purchased by Prince Alexander Petrovich Basilevsky (1829-1885), Paris; from whom, Ffrs 5,500,000, with the rest of his collection en bloc, to Tsar Alexander III of Russia, 1884;⁵⁵Provenance 840-1884 reconstructed by J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. pp. 372-73. …; collection Dr Fritz Mannheimer (1890-1939), Amsterdam and Paris, after September 1933 and before 1936;⁶⁶B.B. Piotrovski, History of the Hermitage. Short overview. Materials and Documents, Moscow 2000 (original in Russian), p. 400 (cited in a list of first-class paintings and objects of applied art, transferred to Antikvariat or sent to Moscow, under section 2 (‘Applied arts’): een ongelooflijk gebeeldhouwd been, 9de-10de eeuw (A)(an amazingly sculpted bone, 9th-10th century), whereby ‘A’ states that it was transferred to Antikvariat); N.M. Serapina and B.S. Davydov, The Hermitage We Lost. Documents 1920-1930, St Petersburg 2001 (original in Russian), p. 332 (List K, no. 2119/S (List of antique objects from the Hermitage to be sold by order of the State), dated 15 September 1933, no. 10: Carved elk horn, Western work from the 10th century, Cat. Basilevsky, no. 52, plate II 12.000,-- Rubles); O. von Falke, Katalog der Sammlung F[ritz] M[annheimer], Amsterdam 1936, p. 166, no. P.50. With thanks to Janneke Martens, Rijksmuseum, for kindly sharing this Russian literature. purchased from his estate, en bloc, by the Dienststelle Mühlmann, The Hague, for Adolf Hitler’s Führermuseum, Linz, 1940;⁷⁷E.J. Korthals Altes, Verzameling Mannheimer, Amsterdam 1974, pp. 21-22. war recuperation, SNK, 1945;⁸⁸HNA, SNK Archive, 2.08.42, inv. no. 548. on loan, with 1,702 other objects, from the DRVK to the museum, 1952;⁹⁹Note RMA. transferred to the museum, 1960

ObjectNumber: BK-16990

This unique, exquisitely carved elk antler is very likely an ex-voto or memorabilium originating from the funerary chapel of Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious (778-840), son and heir to the throne of Charlemagne, in the German city of Metz. The antler’s earliest known mention occurs in 1867, the year in which it was sold among numerous items formerly belonging to the art collector Philippe-Antoine Paguet (1768-1854), a local pâtissier (pastry chef) in that same city.¹⁰¹⁰Sale, Paguet collection, Paris (Drouot), 8 and 9 February 1867, pp. 13-14 (no. 2); I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 25. Having no children of his own, Paguet bequeathed all his possessions upon his death in 1854 to his nephew by marriage, the Metz wine dealer Victor Colchen. It was not until Colchen’s death in 1867, that Paguet’s entire collection of art came under the hammer at the Paris auction house Drouot. Among the many items offered, the elk antler sold for 8,550 French francs – with the exception of one other piece, the highest amount bid – to one Henri Delange (1804-?), an art dealer in Paris.¹¹¹¹Sale, Paguet collection, Paris (Drouot), 8 and 9 February 1867, no. 2: Corne délan formant bouclier. Une frise entièrement sculptée en relief suit les contours de cette corne. Elle représente des animaux chimériques se jouant au milieu de rinceaux, de fruits et de feuillages. Les andouiliers, au nombre de sept, font saillie autour de la frise; la poignée du bouclier est formé par une tête de lion, sculptée de la naissance de la corne. Morceau des plus rares, et dun admirable travail, du XIe au XIIe siècle. Long., 75 cent.; larg., 20 cent. (Elk horn forming a shield. A frieze entirely carved in relief follows the contours of this horn. It represents chimerical animals playing in the middle of rinceaux, fruits and foliage. The antlers, seven in number, protrude around the frieze; forming the shields hilt is a lion’s head, carved from the onset of the horn. One of the rarest pieces, and of admirable workmanship, from the 11th to the 12th century. Length, 75 cm; width, 20 cm.) The highest amount – 9150 Ffrs – was paid for no. 1: a pair of consular reliefs, likewise purchased by Delange and later ending up in Basilevsky’s possession. In the years 1847-69, Delange published a variety of books on French faience and Italian majolica, including Recueil de faïences italiennes des XVe, XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris 1869), written in collaboration with Alfred Darcel. In his turn, Delange sold the antler at some point between 1867 and 1870 to Prince Alexander Petrovich Basilevsky (1829-1885), a Russian nobleman and prominent art collector in Paris.¹²¹²For the collector Basilewsky, see M. Kryzanowskaya, ‘Alexander Petrovich Basilevsky : A Great Collector of Medieval and Renaissance Works of Art’, Journal of the History of Collections 2 (1990), pp. 143-55; E. Pagella and T. Rappe, L’Ermitage di Basilewsky: Il collezionista di meraviglie, Turin 2013.

One year after the sale, Charles Abel, a renowned historian and archaeologist of Metz, published an article on medieval ivory carvings from the city’s cathedral in the Mémoires de la Société d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de la Moselle.¹³¹³C. Abel, ‘Essai sur d’anciens ivoires sculptés de la cathédrale de Metz’, Mémoires de la Société d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de la Moselle 10 (1868), pp. 207-59, esp. pp. 216, 248. In the same article, Abel also discussed a number of ivories from Paguet’s collection, including two ivory reliefs,¹⁴¹⁴I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 25-28, 34-36. and the twelfth-century ‘cor de Charlemagne’ (also called the ‘oliphant of St Arnulphus’), today preserved at the Musée Cluny.¹⁵¹⁵Paris, Musée national de la Moyen-Age, Thermes de Cluny, inv. no. Cl 13065; see D. Gaborit-Chopin, ‘L’olifant de Saint-Arnoul’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 26-28. According to Abel, Paguet also possessed two fragments from Louis the Pious’s burial tomb.¹⁶¹⁶I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 25. His article also mentioned the account of an old and venerable citizen of Metz, who stated that, prior to the French Revolution, the horn and antler had always hung as ex-votos in King Louis’s funerary chapel: ‘Mr Paguet heard from an old man from Metz that before the Revolution his oliphant had hung as an ex-voto in the vault of the chapel of Louis the Pious in the Abbey Church of Saint-Arnould and was believed by the people to be Charlemagne’s hunting horn. There was also a shield that was procured by Mr Paguet [...] The shield was made from the horn of an elk; it was decorated with crude carvings in the German style representing animals, foliage and fruit in a frieze around a handle in the form of a lion’s head. [...] An old canon of our cathedral found this tablet among other religious effects, from which Mr Paguet obtained his diptychs, his oliphant and his shield.¹⁷¹⁷C. Abel, ‘Essai sur d’anciens ivoires sculptés de la cathédrale de Metz’, Mémoires de la Société d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de la Moselle 10 (1868), pp. 207-59, esp. pp. 247-49: M. Paguet tenait d’un vieillard messin que son oliphant était, avant la Révolution, suspendu comme un ex voto à la voûte de la chapelle de Louis-le-Débonnaire, dans l’église de l’abbaye Saint-Arnould, et q’uil passait dans le peuple pour être le cor de chasse de Charlemagne. On voit aussi un bouclier que s’était procuré par M. Paguet. (...) Le bouclier de M. Paguet était formé de la corne d’un élan; il était orné de sculptures grossières, du style allemand, qui représentaient des animaux, des feuillages et des fruits se déroulant en frise autour d’une poignée figurant une tête de lion. (...) Un vieux chanoine de notre cathédrale avait trouvé cette tablette au milieu d’autres défroques religieuses, doù M. Paguet avait retiré ses diptyques, son oliphant et son bouclier. The shared provenance of the hunting horn and the elk antler (the latter described by Abel as a shield) – both having come from the funerary chapel of Louis the Pious – bestowed on these works the high esteem afforded Carolingian relics. By all appearances, the two objects were either lost or sold in the aftermath of the French Revolution.¹⁸¹⁸While there is no tangible evidence to substantiate that the antler indeed came from the funerary chapel, there is scant reason to question Abel’s information. As far as can be ascertained, Paguet largely drew on local sources when building up his collection, with a radius of action encompassing Metz and its immediate surroundings, it must be deemed improbable for the antler to have entered his possession from a more distant location. Unfortunately, there exists no inventory or detailed description of the funerary chapel to verify the objects origin. The inventories of the church treasury – e.g. Médiathèque Metz ms 245 (12th century) and that of Sébastien Dieudonné (c. 1770) – are limited solely to the actual relics or pieces once preserved in the sacristy, see P.-É. Wagner, ‘Trésor de Saint-Arnoul’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 17-22. In the years 1792-93, attempts had been made to smuggle out part of the church’s treasury.¹⁹¹⁹I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 30-31. Presumably, however, most of the collection was ultimately confiscated and sold at that time. It was then that the fragments from the burial tomb and the most important of the ivories – among them very likely the elk antler – were dispersed, in the end finding their way into Pauget’s possession. In 1874, the antler again appears in the catalogue of the Basilewsky collection, depicted in a heliogravure.²⁰²⁰A. Darcel and A.P. Basilewsky, Collection Basilewsky: Catalogue raisonné, coll. cat. Paris 1874, no. 52, pl. II; J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. fig. 2. It can also be seen in a watercolour of the interior of Basilewsky’s home on the Rue Blanche, which shows the collector sitting surrounded by his art treasure.²¹²¹J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. fig. 1.

The ‘shield’ is made from antler – an ‘eight-pointer’ – of a European elk (Alces Alces). It is a so-called palmate antler, recognizable by the flattened, wide palm and the sharp points or ‘tines’. Three of the eight tines have broken off, perhaps already during the animals lifetime. Of the remaining five, one tine was partly replaced early on, with another broken tine restored more recently. Abel’s remark that the antler once hung from the vaulted ceiling of the funerary chapel – together with the ‘cor de Charlemagne’ – is supported by the seven drill holes made in the antler’s natural underside, allowing it to be hung with a cord, inverted with the short side facing upwards.

The Amsterdam antler is one of two known surviving decorated medieval elk antlers where the natural form has been preserved;²²²²For the other elk antler, preserved at the Dommuseum in Hildesheim, see R. Kahsnitz, ‘Goldschmidt Addenda, Teil I. Nachträge zu den Bänden I-III des Elfenbeincorpus von Adolph Goldschmidt’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 68 (2014), Berlin 2017, pp. 9-78, no. 45 (as ‘8th-10th century or later’). An engraving of a third, presumably lost antler can be seen in Francesco Calzolari, Musaeum Franc: Calceolari in Veronensis (…), Verona 1622. J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. p. 380 (note 70). it has not been reworked into a utilitarian object or sawn into plaques.²³²³Elk antler was a material commonly used for tools and utilitarian objects in both prehistoric and Roman times. In the Middle Ages, antler was primarily used by the Vikings for making combs and other carved objects, see A. MacGregor, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period, London/Sydney 1985, pp. 202-03. M. Rijkelijkhuizen, Handleiding voor de determinatie van harde dierlijke materialen: Bot, gewei, ivoor, hoorn, schildpad, balein en hoef, Amsterdam 2008, pp. 35-37. M. Rijkelijkhuizen, ‘Een middeleeuwse container van gewei: Een bijzondere vondst van het Burseplein, Deventer’, Westerheem 60 (2011), no. 5, pp. 232-35. The antler’s convex exterior side has been decorated with a double-bordered frieze that closely follows the contours of the middle section. The frieze itself is decorated with rinceaux of undulating vines abundant with grape bunches and foliage, and interspersed with predatory birds and several lions engaged in the act of biting at the vine. Most of the birds have a curious form, with the head arching backwards under one of the feet. Five of the eight antler tines have been transformed into fantastical monsters. The topmost is a recumbent lion; lying behind its are a winged dragon with lion’s head and a pointed curly tail. The antler tine middle-left assumes the form of a grapevine winding its way up to the point, intersected by two winged, intertwined snakes. A hybrid dragon with lion’s head and a winged body again dominates the third tine, finally terminating in a curving pointed tail. The fourth comprises intertwining snakes among the grapevines. The fifth and last antler tine features a recumbent lion ¬– undoubtedly a replacement, albeit at a relatively early point in time, but no later than 1874. Because the heads of all the above-cited beasts turn to face the middle section, with the grapevines ostensibly sprouting from their gaping mouths, one can only conclude that they form an integral part of the decoration system. Two short, broken antler tips have been transformed into lion’s heads, with their wide-opened mouths directed away from the central part. The antler’s stem terminates in a large lion’s head. Both the frieze and the monsters belong to the repertoire of fantastical creatures ordinarily encountered in art starting in the early Romanesque period. Just as with the antler, they typically populate the borders and margins of their supports.²⁴²⁴J. Baltrusaitis, La stylistique ornamentale dans la sculpture romane, Paris 1931; M. Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art, London 1992; L. Daston and K. Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750, New York 1998, pp. 13-59; P. Dinzelbacher and R. Frenken, Der steinerne Blick: Symbolköpfe der Romanik, Baden-Baden 2008, figs. 28, 78, 81 and 93; K. Niehr, ‘Sculpturing Architecture, Framing Sculpture, and the Modes of Contextualizing the Arts in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in R.A. Maxwell and K. Ambrose (eds.), Current Directions in Eleventh and Twelfth-Century Sculpture Studies (Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages 5), Turnhout 2010, pp. 119-40.

The antler was hung by means of two cords passing through original suspension holes drilled in the tips of the first three tines: one cord passed through the gaping jaws of the lion’s heads on the two short tines; a second cord, tied to the hole in the curled tail at the end of the long tine, was used to stabilize the whole. Suspended from these three points, the antler would have been positioned essentially the same as it was once seen sitting on the elk’s head.²⁵²⁵Observations made by Robyn Barrow and Frits Scholten, 3 April 2024.

The decoration was executed with great care, adapted to the natural form. This applies both to the carved tines as well as the frieze with grapevines and animals, which follow the antler palm’s contour with great precision. Laying out the frieze was certainly no simple task: it necessitated that the artist made subtle corrections in the pattern of the winding vine in response to the antler’s irregular form and the inconstant distances separating each of tines. By introducing variations in the birds and the lions, but also by cleverly adapting the form of the vine, the artist managed to achieve a fluid and seemingly regular decorative pattern. This leaves no doubt that respecting and maintaining the recognizability of the antler’s natural form was of great importance. Furthermore, he chose for a striking contrast between the empty middle section – where no single trace of decoration has been applied (apart from smoothening the surface) – and the ornate ornamentation of the frieze and tines. Alternating between decorative and empty spaces is a characteristic shared with a number of surviving oliphants from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Past inquiries into the origin and dating of the Rijksmuseum antler shield gave rise to a variety of theories. The sale catalogue accompanying the Paguet collection describes it as a work dating from the ‘eleventh to twelfth century’, with no stated provenance. The Basilewsky catalogue, by contrast, lists the antler as Art Byzantin with a dating in the ninth century. In 1936, when still held in Fritz Mannheimers collection in Amsterdam, Von Falke catalogued the antler as ‘Romanisch um 1200’ (Romanesque circa 1200). In the Rijksmuseum’s annual report of 1953, Leeuwenberg described the piece as Romaans (Romanesque) and waarschijnlijk afkomstig uit Scandinavië (probably originating from Scandinavia).²⁶²⁶Verslagen omtrent ‘s Rijks verzamelingen van geschiedenis en kunst 1953, p. 19. Radiocarbon dating of a sample taken from the core of the broken tine confirmed the antler’s significant age, with the moment at which the elk shed its antlers or was killed as hunting quarry occurring between 975-1020 AD.²⁷²⁷Research conducted by Prof Dr J. van der Plicht, Groningen University, Center for Isotope Research, 21 August 2012). Sample no. GrA 54012: 1065 +/- 40 years, and GrA 54013: 1050 +/- 40 years; taken as an average, this results in 1055 +/- 30 (rounded off to 5). Calibrated to calendar time, the result is: 975-1020 AD (1-sigma margin of error). This dating rules out the possibility that the piece was produced in Emperor Louis the Pious’s lifetime – already a highly improbable conclusion on stylistic grounds. Circa 1000, the range of elk still extended across much of the European Continent, as far west as the British Isles and as far east as Germany, as far north as the Low Countries and as far south as the Alps and the Pyrenees Mountains.²⁸²⁸U. Schmölke and F.E. Zachos, ‘Holocene Distribution and Extinction of the Moose (Alces Alces, Cervidae) in Central Europe’, Mammalian Biology: Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde 70 (2005), no. 6, pp. 329-44; J. Rülcker and F. Stalfelt, Das Elchwild: Naturgeschichte, Ökologie, Hege und Jagd des europäischen Elches, Hamburg/Berlin 1986; K. Jackson, Moose, London 2008; H. Prell, Die Verbreitung des Elches in Deutschland zu geschichtlicher Zeit, Leipzig 1941; A. Franzmann and Ch. Schwartz, The Ecology and Management of the North American Moose, Bolder 2008. Quite tenably, the antler could originally have been retrieved in the immediate surroundings of Metz. This belies Leeuwenberg’s belief that it could only have originated from Scandinavia.²⁹²⁹I. Bardiès, ‘Corne délan, collection Basilewsky’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 42-43, esp. p. 43. Indeed, the style of the carving betrays nothing of the compact and complex decoration patterns associated with the late Viking style.³⁰³⁰Cf. A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen, vol. 2, Aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sa¨chsischen Kaiser, VIII..-XI. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1918, no. 192 and pls. LXV-LXIX; Ibidem., vol. 3, Aus der romanischen Zeit, XI.-XIII. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1923 , nos. 140-45. Nevertheless, by this time human encounters with shy elk were fairly uncommon in many parts of the Continent; antlers would have come to been seen as objects of curiosity, possibly even bestowed with magical, apotropaic powers.³¹³¹D. Preising, ‘Jagdtrophäe und Schnitzwerk: Zum Typus des Geweihleuchter’, in D. Preising, M. Rief and C. Vogt (eds.), Artefakt und Naturwunder: Das Leuchterweibchen der Sammlung Ludwig, exh. cat. Oberhausen (Ludwiggalerie Schloss) 2011, pp. 17-83, esp. p. 47; F.M. Kammel, ‘Gehörnt: Das Geweih als Throphäe, Apotropaion und Zierrat’, in T. Springer et al., Vom Ansehen der Tiere: Kulturgeschichtliche Spaziergänge im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, vol. 11, Nuremberg 2009, pp. 132-47, esp. pp. 135-38.

Charles Abel described the antler disparagingly as a work executed in a grossières, du style allemande (coarse, German style). Ironically, not Germany but regions in fact nearer to Abel’s home – northern France, Alsace-Lorraine and the northernmost reaches of the Moselle, Rur and Meuse rivers – are where one finds the greatest stylistic parallels. Similar decorative grapevines – albeit slightly compacter, with or without animals – adorn eleventh- and early-twelfth-century portable altars from Metz, Namur and Trier,³²³²M. Budde, Altare portatile: Kompendium der tragaltäre des Mittelalters 600-1600, Münster/Werne a/d Lippe 1998 (CD-ROM), nos. 3 (Metz or Rheims, c. 870 with restorations from 975-1001), 10 (Liège, c. 1050, borders carved from walrus ivory), 76 (Metz or Mosan, c. 1175-1200), 83 (Trier or Lorraine, 1050-1150; borders of embossed and gilded copper). a reliquary cross from Solières (c. 1150),³³³³Liège, Musée Curtius (Musée d’Art Religieux et d’Art Mosan), inv. no. J 169/74. and Romanesque capitals at Maastricht (in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, c. 1160), nearby Rolduc, and Liège.³⁴³⁴J.J.M. Timmers, De kunst van het Maasland, Assen s.a., figs. 310-11, 320-21, 328, 337-39 and 351; E. den Hartog, Romanesque Sculpture in Maastricht, Maastricht 2002, p. 16 (who dates these ‘considerably earlier than 1167’) and figs. 52, 79, 80, 83, 320, 321, 323, 329, 351. Also, A.F.W. Bosman, De Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk te Maastricht: Bouwgeschiedenis en historische betekenis van de oostpartij, Zutphen 1990, pp. 45-61; A.J.J. Mekking, De Sint Servaaskerk te Maastricht: Bijdragen tot de kennis van de symboliek en de geschiedenis van de bouwdelen en de bouwsculptuur tot ca. 1200, Zutphen 1986, pp. 195-215. Important for a determination of the antler’s dating is a striking agreement between the grapevine frieze and comparable motifs in several illuminated manuscripts. Kahsnitz observed commonalities with the characteristic, sharply defined and open vine tendrils in illuminated works produced at the abbey of St. Bertinus at Saint-Omer during the abbacy of Odbert (987-1007), including the Evangeliarium Saint-Omer (the Liber generationis, ms 56), or the Quoniam leaf (fol. 51r) in manuscript M.333 in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.³⁵³⁵R. Kahsnitz, ‘Goldschmidt Addenda, Teil I. Nachträge zu den Bänden I-III des Elfenbeincorpus von Adolph Goldschmidt’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 68 (2014), Berlin 2017, pp. 9-78, esp. p. 49; and written communication July 2017, in Object File. The lion’s head on the stem of the Amsterdam antler has a block-like form echoing four walrus ivory lion’s heads on the Nonnberger faldistorium in Salzburg, a fifteenth-century folding chair partly reconstructed with elements from a much older piece. These re-used elements – including the lion’s heads – are said to be of northern French or English origin, circa 1125-50.³⁶³⁶H. Fillitz and M. Pippal, Schatzkunst: Die Goldschmiede- und Elfenbeinarbeiten aus österreichischen Schatzkammern des Hochmittelalters, Vienna 1987, no. 79 (esp. p. 284, figs. 79.3, 22, 23, 42, 43, en 79.45); J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. figs. 11, 12. Adorning the crowning element of an ivory crozier, possibly once belonging to Bishop Ivo of Chartres (after 1090), are dragons intertwined with grapevines similar in form and style to those of the Amsterdam elk antler.³⁷³⁷A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen, vol. 4, Aus der romanischen Zeit, XI.-XIII. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1926, no. 42 and pl. XII; J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, fig. 13. Both French and German parallels exist for the characteristic pose of the birds in the frieze, with their heads bent backwards below one leg. The same motif appears, for example, on the tenth-or eleventh-century mallet of the ‘Joyeuse’ and the foot of a German altar candlestick from Fritzlar.³⁸³⁸Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. MS 84, see D. Gaborit-Chopin, Regalia: Les instruments du sacre des rois de France: Les honneurs de Charlemagne, Paris 1987, pp. 64-72, esp. fig. 6; O. von Falke and E. Meyer, Romanische Leuchter und Gefässe: Giessgefässe der Gotik, vol. 1, Berlin 1935, figs. 102c-d. Also M.-T. Camus and E. Carpentier, Sculpture romane du Poitou: Le temps des chefs-doeuvre, s.p. 2009, figs. 412 (Poitiers, Notre-Dame-la-Grande, tympanum, lower right), 507 (St-Hilaire-des-Loges, capital with lion). E. den Hartog, Romanesque Sculpture in Maastricht, Maastricht 2002, p. 380. Striking stylistic and iconographic parallels can also be observed when comparing the lions entwined in the vines of the antler frieze to those found on two stone lintels: one from a wall on Rue des Trinitaires in Metz and the other from the church in nearby Méy. The latter not only share the pose and lively expression of the antler lions, but also the limberness and muscular build conveyed by the arched backs, full-round buttocks and slender legs, standing tall on their feet.³⁹³⁹A. Adrian et al., Metz La Cour d’Or: Visages dun musée, Metz 2011, p. 74 (inv. no. 1293); J. Ernst-Weis, ‘Früh- und Hoch-Romanische Baukunst in Metz und Umgebung’, Forschungen zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte_ 17, Berlin 1937, p. 59. N. Müller-Dietrich, Die romanische Skulptur in Lothringen, 1968, pp. 37-43, figs. 22, 24. All of the above-cited points of agreement together warrant a localization of the elk antler in northern or north-eastern France, and a dating in the early eleventh century based on the correspondence with manuscript illumination from Saint-Omer.⁴⁰⁴⁰J. de Hond and F. Scholten (‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. p. 377) still assumed a date in the late 11th or first half of the 12th century, but that leaves a difficult to explain gap of more than a hundred years between the radiocarbon dating and the alleged period of the decoration of the antlers. Also, R. Kahsnitz, ‘Goldschmidt Addenda, Teil I. Nachträge zu den Bänden I-III des Elfenbeincorpus von Adolph Goldschmidt’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 68 (2014), Berlin 2017, pp. 9-78, no. 46 (Anfang 11. Jahrh.). This dating is likewise reasonably corroborated by the radiocarbon dating of the antler itself. Importantly, none of the findings above preclude a Metz provenance.

Little is known about the antler’s function, other than that it hung in Louis the Pious’s burial chapel and that, in the nineteenth century, it was thought to be either a shield, ex-voto or curiosity – with one designation by no means excluding the other. Von Falke viewed the antler as an object ohne Gebrauchszweck (without utilitarian function).⁴¹⁴¹C. Abel, ‘Essai sur d’anciens ivoires sculptés de la cathédrale de Metz’, Mémoires de la Société d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de la Moselle 10 (1868), pp. 207-59, esp. p. 248; A. Darcel and A.P. Basilewsky, Collection Basilewsky: Catalogue raisonné, coll. cat. Paris 1874, no. 52; O. von Falke, Katalog der Sammlung FM, Amsterdam 1936, p. 166. One can assume it was originally treasured as a hunting trophy, taken around the year 1000 from a then rare and exotic animal sort and shortly thereafter bestowed a new function and meaning.⁴²⁴²One fine example of a set of antlers later transformed into a hunting trophy is the early-16th-century Grosse Kaiserleuchter (great imperial chandelier) from Goslar, built with the antlers of a great elk shot in 1349, D. Preising, ‘Jagdtrophäe und Schnitzwerk: Zum Typus des Geweihleuchter’, in D. Preising, M. Rief and C. Vogt (eds.), Artefakt und Naturwunder: Das Leuchterweibchen der Sammlung Ludwig, exh. cat. Oberhausen (Ludwiggalerie Schloss) 2011, pp. 17-83, esp. p. 54; J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80, esp. p. 379, and fig. 18. As Abel already believed in 1868, that function was perhaps a symbolic shield or ex-voto, procured in the eleventh century to augment the burial chapel of Louis the Pious in the Benedictine abbey church of St Arnould with a Carolingian ‘relic’. By the late eighth and early ninth century, this church – dating back to the sixth century – had become an important mausoleum of the Carolingian dynasty. Besides Arnould – patron saint and founding father of the imperial family – other family members laid to rest here included Hildegarde, Charlemagnes wife, in 783, as well as various daughters and cousins of the emperor. In 843, Louis the Pious was subsequently buried here in a late-antique sarcophagus, followed in 855 by his half-brother, Drogo, the highly influential Archbishop of Metz. Yet information regarding the earliest disposition of the Carolingian tombs in the church of Saint-Arnould remains virtually non-existent.⁴³⁴³I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 23-26; M. Gaillard, ‘Léphémère promotion dun mausolée dynastique: La sépulture de Louis le Pieux à Saint-Arnoul de Metz’, Médiévales 33 (1997), pp. 141-45; J.A. Schmoll Eisenwerth, ‘Das Grabmal Kaiser Ludwigs des Frommen in Metz’, Aachener Kunstblätter, vol. 45 (1974), pp. 75-96. N.-B. Galit, ‘The Sarcophagus of Louis the Pious at Metz’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster 45 (2011), pp. 37-50. In the mid-eleventh century, the abbey church underwent a major renovation, at which time the individual graves were relocated, with Louis’s sarcophagus moved close to the grave of his mother, Hildegarde. Almost two centuries later, in the thirteenth century, Louis’s tomb was further embellished with the addition of a stone-carved effigy. In the context of the abbey with all its Carolingian relics, one can readily imagine that ‘new relics’ were added to the chapel, particularly after Pope Leo IX’s consecration of the newly renovated abbey church in 1049, which coincided with the reinstallation of the imperial burial chapel. Moreover, a renaissance in the esteem afforded the Carolingian dynasty began to manifest itself in various forms in the twelfth century, giving rise to Charlemagne’s canonization and the growing popularity of the chansons de geste.⁴⁴⁴⁴For the abbey’s renovation, see P.-É. Wagner, ‘Trésor de Saint-Arnoul’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 17-22, esp. pp. 17-18, and I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 23.

When in 1552 the old abbey was demolished during the Siege of Metz by Emperor Charles V’s troops, the Benedictine monks were bestowed new living quarters within the city walls, in the former monastery of the Dominicans. With great pomp and circumstance, the remains of Louis the Pious and the other Carolingian family members were transferred in a procession to the new abbey church of St. Arnould. On the orders of the French king, Henry II, a new tomb monument was built, thereby incorporating elements from the old burial chapel, including the antique sarcophagus – by this time holding not only Louis’s remains, but also those of his mother, half-brother, and the other Carolingian family members – and its thirteenth-century effigy. It was from the vaulted ceiling of this later burial chapel that the Rijksmuseum antler and the oliphant in the Musée Cluny once hung.⁴⁵⁴⁵I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 24 (with ill.). With the exception of a few minor alterations and several new inscriptions, this monument remained virtually unchanged up until the French Revolution, at which time it was destroyed and the abbey church of St Arnould was dismantled. Fortunately, this later monument has been preserved in the form of various prints and drawings. It was also at this time that the burial chapel’s contents were removed and subsequently dispersed.⁴⁶⁴⁶I. Bardiès, ‘Sarcophage de Louis de Pieux’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 23-26, esp. p. 25.

Darcel and Basilevsky both presumed that ‘without significant use, [the elk antler] must have been cherished as a curiosity, just like a great number of natural but rare objects kept in the churches and their treasuries’.⁴⁷⁴⁷… sans emploi appréciable, devait être conservé comme curiosité, ainsi quun grand nombre dobjets naturels, mais rares, létaient même dans les églises et leurs trésors; A. Darcel and A.P. Basilewsky, Collection Basilewsky: Catalogue raisonné, coll. cat. Paris 1874, no. 52. As such, they placed the present antler in the same group as other naturalia and mirabilia, together with narwhal, elephant and shark teeth, bulls horns, bones, fossils, red corals and ostrich eggs. From very early on, churches valued these natural curiosities for their exotic allure, symbolic/theological meaning or their curative, antidotal and apotropaic qualities, and acquired them as objects to enrich their treasuries.⁴⁸⁴⁸J. von Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spät-Renaissance: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens, Braunschweig 1978, pp. 19-23; D. Preising, ‘Jagdtrophäe und Schnitzwerk: Zum Typus des Geweihleuchter’, in D. Preising, M. Rief and C. Vogt (eds.), Artefakt und Naturwunder: Das Leuchterweibchen der Sammlung Ludwig, exh. cat. Oberhausen (Ludwiggalerie Schloss) 2011, pp. 17-83, esp. pp. 79-83; H.D. Schepelern, Museum Wormianum: Dets Forudsaetninger og Tilblivelse, Odense (privately printed) 1971, pp. 24, 291, 357 (no. 242); S. Laube, Von der Reliquie zum Ding: Heiliger Ort – Wunderkammer – Museum, Berlin 2011, pp. 62-86, figs. 31-35, 37-42, 45, 54, 55; P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200-1550, 2 vols., coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 2014, no. 96 (carved narwhal tusk, English, c. 1125-50). Elk antlers and hoofs were also known for their miraculous healing powers, especially when treating epileptic seizures and mental diseases, see K. Jackson, Moose, London 2008, pp. 46-49; H. Prell, Die Verbreitung des Elches in Deutschland zu geschichtlicher Zeit, Leipzig 1941, pp. 22-23. Cardinal Paleotti (1522-1597) of Bologna explicitly mentions the corna de cervi (elk antlers) in his extensive enumeration of religious curiosities, alongside crocodiles, ostrich eggs and exotic animals.⁴⁹⁴⁹C. Ossola, Autunno del Rinascimento: Idea del Tempio dell’arte nell’ultimo Cinquecento, Florence 1971, p. 277; S. Laube, Von der Reliquie zum Ding: Heiliger Ort – Wunderkammer – Museum, Berlin 2011, p. 66. From the fifteenth century on, the integration of naturalium and artefact – of which the Amsterdam elk antler is an exceptionally rare and early example – was to become one of the guiding principles of the Kunst- und Wunderkammer. That a decorative elk antler similar to the present one also hung from the beams of Francesco Calzolari’s Wunderkammer in Verona in 1622 therefore comes as no surprise.⁵⁰⁵⁰This (presumably lost) antler can be seen in an engraving published in Francesco Calzolari, Musaeum Franc: Calceolari in Veronensis (…), Verona 1622.

Frits Scholten, 2024

_Catalogue des Objets d’art composant la Collection de feu M. Paguet, de Metz, Remarquables ivoires sculptés; émaux de Limoges; Faïences de Bernard Palissy; Bronzes; Bois sculptés; Marbres; Manuscrits; Curiosités diverses; tableaux anciens [...], sale cat. Paris (Drouot), 8 and 9 February 1867, no. 2; C. Abel, ‘Essai sur d’anciens ivoires sculptés de la cathédrale de Metz’, Mémoires de la Société d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de la Moselle 10 (1868), pp. 207-59; A. Darcel and A.P. Basilewsky, Collection Basilewsky: Catalogue raisonné, coll. cat. Paris 1874, p. 16, no. 52, pl. II; A. Darcel, ‘La collection Basilewsky’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 1 (1885), pp. 39-54; A.N. Kube, Лосиный Рог Ix Beka [Elk horn, IXth century], Seminarium Kondakovianum. Recueil d’études. Archéologie, Histoire de l’art, Études Byzantines, vol. 1, Prague 1927, pp. 111-13 (reprint of an article in an unpublished manuscript Festschrift commemorating the 35th birthday of Professor Zhebelev); M. Kryzanowskaya, ‘Alexander Petrovich Basilevsky: A Great Collector of Medieval and Renaissance Works of Art’, Journal of the History of Collections 2 (1990), pp. 143-55, esp. figs. 2, 3; P.-É. Wagner, ‘Trésor de Saint-Arnoul’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 17-22, esp. pp. 18, 20; I. Bardiès, ‘Corne délan, collection Basilewsky’, in I. Bardiès, F. Heber-Suffrin and P.-É. Wagner, Le chemin des reliques: Témoignages précieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse à Metz au moyen âge, exh. cat. Metz (Musées de la Cour d’Or) 2000-01, pp. 42-43; J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The Elk Antler from the Funerary Chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine 155 (2013), pp. 372-80; E. Nekrasova-Shedrinsky, ‘Il destino delle opere della collezione Basilewsky’, in E. Pagella and T. Rappe, L’Ermitage di Basilewsky: Il collezionista di meraviglie, Turin 2013, pp. 32-40, esp. pp. 39-40 (with ill.); F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 2; F. Tixier, ‘Un certain goût pour lorfèvrerie mosane au XIXe siècle: Quelques remarques sur la collection Parisienne d’Alexandre Basilewsky’, in Feuillets de la Cathedrale de Liège (Orfèvrerie septentrionale XIIe et XIIIe siècle), Liège 2016, pp. 121-33, esp. pp. 123, 130; R. Kahsnitz, ‘Goldschmidt Addenda, Teil I. Nachträge zu den Bänden I-III des Elfenbeincorpus von Adolph Goldschmidt’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 68 (2014), Berlin 2017, pp. 9-78, esp. p. 49 (no. 46)

F. Scholten, 2024, 'anonymous, Shield from the Antler of an Elk, Meuse area, c. 0975 - c. 1050', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200391656