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

337. MS M.651, fol. 167r
338. MS M.651, fol. 167v
339. MS M.651, fol. 168r
340. MS M.651, fol. 168v
341. MS M.651, fol. 169r
342. MS M.651, fol. 169v
343. MS M.651, fol. 170r
344. MS M.651, fol. 170v
345. MS M.651, fol. 171r
346. MS M.651, fol. 171v
347. MS M.651, fol. 172r
348. MS M.651, fol. 172v

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.