Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Gospel Book from Cologne

217. MS M.651, fol. 107r
218. MS M.651, fol. 107v
219. MS M.651, fol. 108r
220. MS M.651, fol. 108v
221. MS M.651, fol. 109r
222. MS M.651, fol. 109v
223. MS M.651, fol. 110r
224. MS M.651, fol. 110v
225. MS M.651, fol. 111r
226. MS M.651, fol. 111v
227. MS M.651, fol. 112r
228. MS M.651, fol. 112v

Treasure bindings, like medieval reliquaries, were often modified and added to over the centuries. Here, only the ivory Crucifixion may have been part of the original binding. Possibly made in Liège, it is unusual because John is shown writing at the Crucifixion, Mary holds a book, and a dragon is beneath them. The evangelist portraits in the corners, carved from walrus tusk, are late-twelfth-century Rhenish work. The silver-gilt metalwork and the settings for the bloodstones, deliberately placed on axes with the Crucifixion, date from succeeding centuries. The bloodstone was thought to symbolize the blood of Christ, which is also alluded to in the last addition: the fifteenth-century painted head of Christ with the crown of thorns, located behind the large crystal at the bottom.