probably from a châsse, dark blue ground with turquoise bands and colored rosettes applied with figures in relief, Christ in Majesty seated on a colored rainbow symbolic of the arc of heaven, within a mandorla and surrounded by heads of symbols of the evangelists, flanked by two figures of saints or apostles, with red paint accession number 17.190.778 on the bottom right, the reverse with various collection labels including a Morgan label numbered P.M. 456. 

Georges Hoentschel, Paris

J. Pierpont Mo𒊎rgan, London and New York until 1917

Saints in Gothic Art, American Federation of Arts, New Y✃ork, June 1950

Medieval Art Exhibition, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsi𓆏e, 1979-1980

A Medieval Treasury : an exhibition of medieval art from the third to the sixteenth century, Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornel𒅌l University, Ithaca, New Yoꦯrk, October 8-November 3, 1968, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, November 10-December 8, 1968

A. Perate, Collections Georges Hoentschel, 1911, vol.I, no. 57, pl. XXXIV.

R. G. Calkins, A Medieval Treasury (exh.ca🔜t.), Ithaca and Utica, New York, 1🍬968, pp. 123-24, cat. 35.

RELATED LITERATURE

C. Arminjon et al., Emaux Limousins du Moyen Age..., Limoges, 1995, p.25, fig.a.

Standard surface wear and some losses. Losses predominantly along top edge around figure's heads on the sides and near attachment holes. Chip on lower right corner. Some small restoration to enamel between lower section of left-hand figures on blue ground. Two nails replaced on left-hand figure. Overall good quality and otherwise good condition.
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Compare similar appliqué figures of saints on a châsse preserved in Aubazine, Abbatiale Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité and dated from the first half of the 13th century (Arminjon et. al.,op.cit., p.25). The present plaque illustrates further development in the design of Limoges work where the figure is liberated from the colored ground. By the early 13th century, it was customary to work the figure, not only the head but also the entire figure, in low relief, attaching it with rivets to the enamelled panel. Here, the appliqués are not simply incised with lines but also modelled, so as to create the illusion of volumes and ⛦the form beneath the drapery.