Museum acquires stolen 13th century Limoges enamel. coffin–

Thanks to a dedicated crowdfunding campaign and the generosity of 742 donors, Turin’s Municipal Museum of Ancient Art has acquired five precious Limoges enamel brackets that were missing from a unique 13th-century coffin. The ornaments, believed to have been stolen in the late 18th century, are being sold by a Paris antiques gallery for €50,000, a high price for the Stedelijk Museum to recover the stolen items. The crowdfunding campaign was launched on March 28, 2024, and by the end of December 31, it had exceeded its target of €52,145.

The chest was made by Limoges goldsmiths in 1220-25 from lacquered walnut and decorated with inlaid enamel medallions and relief, carving, and perforated gilt copper. The medals depict scenes of hunting, knightly figures, working peasants and magical beasts. There are plant decorations on the stands and corners. It is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of 13th century goldsmiths and is unique. There is only one case of the same size in Limoges with the medal and its mount: the heraldic coffin of Richard of Cornwall, now in Aachen Cathedral. However, it was produced more than thirty years later and has been extensively modified.

The five small stands on the back of the case are decorated with blue, green and white filled enamel. They adorn the back of the case, placed between large display medals. Today, the back of the case is devoid of all its original decoration, and the acquisition of the five stands gives the museum the opportunity to recover some of the items stolen from this extraordinary work.

The chest belonged to Cardinal Guala Bicchieri (c. 1160-1227), a powerful emissary of Popes Innocent III and Honorius III at the courts of France, England and the Holy Roman Empire. An ecclesiastical lawyer and graduate of the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world, Innocent used his extensive diplomatic skills to mediate thorny disputes and persuade rulers to join the Crusades to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control .

In 1216, as the papal legate to England, he crowned the nine-year-old little king Henry III. Henry III paid tribute to Pope Honorius III, and his feudal lords and the pope in turn announced that he had completed the gimmick of investiture. King Henry was his vassal, and the cardinal had complete authority to protect the boy king and his kingdom. He also arranged for Henry to declare himself a crusader, thereby positioning the rebellious barons who had troubled his father, King John, and were still fighting against the crown, as enemies of Christianity. Guara Picchieri’s seal is a reaffirmation of the Magna Carta, which resolved Henry’s conflict with the nobles.

The cardinal spent his life traveling around the courts of Europe, collecting 80 goldsmith’s works, 104 liturgical vestments, 70 rings, 130 illuminated manuscripts and legal documents, which he placed in chests, which in itself are the most famous collection of Limo The work of a Japanese goldsmith. His collection of Nordic design artifacts influenced the Gothic style that spread across northern Italy. In fact, the Church of St. Andrew of Vercelli in Piedmont, a monastery and church founded by Guala Bicchieri in his hometown in 1219, is one of the earliest Gothic churches in Italy.

After his death in 1227, Guala Bicchieri bequeathed his collection, including the trunks, to Saint Andrew. He was initially buried in Rome, but his remains were later transferred to St. Andrew of Vercelli. The timeline is unclear, but it appears that the brackets at the back of the box were removed during the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th century. At some point, Guala Bicchieri’s bones were placed inside and the coffin disappeared from public view. In 1822 the church underwent restoration work and it was rediscovered walled within the presbytery. The city of Turin acquired the box in 2004.