An important Amsterdam silver gilt monstrance
Resting on an eight-lobed, domed foot with large cherub heads above heads of the symbols of the evangelists and between portrait medallions of the four doctors of the church. The short shaft with a pear-shaped central node and hung to the upper section with tilting swags. The large repository surrounded by a sunburst and flanked by cherubs' heads and two figures of angels: One holding a flaming sword, the other a palm frond. The repository crowned by a tiara with diamonds in foiled settings and a large hoop crown surrounded by four standing putti presenting the arma christi. The finial formed as an openwork sphere surmounted by a model of the pelican feeding its young with a hole in its back, presumably for a cross. With minor later ammendments. H 74; W 38 cm. Iron core.
Marks of Johannes Bogaert, 1656.
Starting in Antwerp in the mid-17th century, the form of Netherlandish monstrances began to change from an architectural form surrounding a central, cylindrical repository to a large figural composition surrounding a round opening within a sunburst (Gans/Duyvené de Wit, p. 23). The numeorus small holes to the display side of this monstrance indicate that it was once incrusted with gems.
Johannes Bogaert was one of just a few Catholic goldsmiths in Amsterdam, and apparently specialised in silver for use in Catholic churches early on. His works have mainly been preserved in an ecclesiastical context, such as a set of large altar candlesticks and a sanctuary lamp kept in the Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, and a monstrance kept in the Liemer's Museum in Zevenaar.
Provenance
Formerly Emil M. Huennebeck Collection, Rhineland.
Literature
Cf. a monstrance of similar form by Bogaert in the Catholic church in Hoorn, illus. in: Gans/Duyvené-de Wit, Dutch Silver, Amsterdam 1958, no. 41. Cf. also a monstance by the Amsterdam maker Michiel Esselbeeck, illus. in cat.: Nederlands zilver 1580 - 1830, The Hague 1979, no. 62.
Exhibitions
Ein rheinischer Silberschatz, Schmuck und Gerät aus Privatbesitz, Cologne, May - July 1980, no. 375, illus. p. 251.