Incense Boat
Unknown Artist
1250–70
Medium
Champlevé enamel, copper-gilt
Dimensions
Overall: 3 1/16 x 10 3/8 x 4 in. (7.7 x 26.4 x 10.2 cm)
Classification
Enamels-Champlevé
Culture
French
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number
17.190.126
Art Historical Context
This exquisite *Incense Boat*, crafted France around 1250–70, is a masterful example of medieval liturgical art. Shaped like a small vessel—measuring just 3 1/16 x 10 3/8 x 4 inches—it held aromatic incense grains used during Catholic Masses. Suspended from chains (now missing), it supplied a swinging thurible, allowing priests to perfume the air as a symbol of prayers ascending to heaven. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Medieval department, it was generously gifted by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1917. The object's brilliance comes from champlevé enamel on a copper-gilt base, a technique...