Ornamental Plaque (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
Enameled in the center and decorated with gilded rosettes on the ends, these plaques display ornamental motifs such as fish scales, floriated scrolls, and lyre-shaped floral volutes. The plaques once adorned the edges of the pediment or gable of a house-shaped reliquary shrine. The colors of the enamel and the copper of both the frame and the original reliquary suggest the divine light that emanates from the holy relics within.
Storytelling: With the rise of the Italian Renaissance and its new emphasis on humanism, crafts suchas pottery were no longer seen as comparable to the fine arts, including painting, sculpture, and architecture. Artisans thus began sacrificing the elaborate styles of their wares in order to provide a blank "canvas" on which to present a story. During the Renaissance, painters of maiolica in Italy and enamel painters of France transformed pieces of decorative arts into elaborately illustrated narratives using the Bible and classical mythology as sources.
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