Design for a Ciborium
17th century
Medium
Pen and brown ink
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1968
Accession Number
68.669.1
Art Historical Context
This delicate pen and brown ink drawing, created by an anonymous Italian artist in the 17th, presents a refined *Design for a Cibor*—a sacred vessel used in Catholic liturgy to hold the consecrated Eucharistic hosts. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Drawings and Prints department, exemplifies the meticulous preparatory sketches favored by Baroque-era workshops, where artists visualized ornate liturgical objects amid the Counter-Reformation's push for grandeur in worship. The design likely features ethereal angels, as suggested by its tags, adorning the ciborium's form with dynamic flo...