Image
Italian
Screen, ca.1130-1300
Now On View
Description
About
Finely wrought grilles, which first appeared as church furnishings in the early 12th century, were used to screen off side chapels, reliquaries, and tombs. A hinge-like segment that is welded to the top left corner of this grille indicates that it functioned as a gate connected to a larger enclosure. The intricate pattern, which suggests a Tree of Life, would have been formed by a blacksmith using a chisel to cut slivers from the sides of square-sectioned iron rods, then bending them back in several turns to form scrolls. Attached to individual stems along with smaller tendrils, pairs of scrolls were collared to one another and used to fill the rectangular format of the grille.
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Exhibition History
Exhibition History
Use
The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is Screen with the accession number of 38.018. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.
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