Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Title: Stavelot Triptych
  • Creator:
  • Description: This triptych houses two smaller Byzantine triptychs at its center. The upper and smallest triptych depicts the Crucifixion and the Annunciation appears on the outer wings of this triptych. The lower triptych contains a relic of the True Cross flanked by Constantine and St. Helena, with four Byzantine military saints on the inner wings and the four Evangelists depicted on the outer wings. The main triptych's wings display a series of six enamels, three illustrating St. Helena's finding of the True Cross and three depicting Constantine's conversion. In the former group St. Helena questions a group of Jews in the lowest roundel, in the middle she watches servants dig up the cross, and in the upper roundel she tests its efficacy on a sick man.
  • Source: WikiMedia Commons
  • Rights: Public domain
  • Subject (See Also): Crosses and Crucifixes Helena, Saint Miracles Relics Reliquaries
  • Geographic Area: Eastern Mediterranean; Low Countries
  • Century: 11; 12
  • Date: ca. 1156-1158
  • Related Work:
  • Current Location: New York, Morgan Library and Museum, AZ 001
  • Original Location:
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Metalwork
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): wood; copper-gilt frames, silver pearls and columns, gilt-brass capitals and bases, vernis brun domes, semi-precious stones, intaglio gems, beads, champlevĂ© and cloisonnĂ© enamels
  • Donor: Male religious; Wibald, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Stavelot in Belgium from 1130 to 1158 (?)
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): open: 484mm; /open: 660mm/
  • Inscription:
  • Related Resources: