GERMAN, AUGSBURG OR NUREMBURG, CIRCA 1520-30

There are four almost identical reliefs, depicting four scenes of Christ’s Passion in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2015.388.1-4). As Elizabeth Cleland writes, the construction of these reliefs was an innovative technique involving molten glass built up over an armature of gold wires on a silver base. And this would have formed part of larger object, such as a reliquary, with additional scenes, probably also from the life of Christ.