Detail View: The AMICA Library: Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-Jean

AMICA ID: 
MMA_.32.147
AMICA Library Year: 
2000
Object Type: 
Architecture
Creator Nationality: 
European; French
Creator Name-CRT: 
French
Title: 
Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-Jean
View: 
Full View
Creation Date: 
ca. 1250
Creation Start Date: 
1240
Creation End Date: 
1260
Materials and Techniques: 
Limestone with traces of polychromy
Classification Term: 
Sculpture-Architectural-Stone
Dimensions: 
15 ft. 5 in. x 12 ft. 7 in. (469.9 x 383.5 cm)
AMICA Contributor: 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Owner Location: 
New York, New York, USA
ID Number: 
32.147
Credit Line: 
The Cloisters Collection, 1932
Rights: 
Context: 

According to tradition, the monastery of Moutiers-Saint-Jean was founded by the first Christian kings of France, Clovis I and his son Clotar I. They are almost certainly depicted in the standing figures presenting their charters, now installed in the embrasures on either side of the portal. The small seated figures in the flanking niches represent biblical personages believed to prefigure or foretell Christ's Crucifixion. The tympanum above the doorway depicts Christ crowning the Virgin as the Queen of Heaven. This portal, probably from the north aisle of the cloister, would have led from the monastic precinct into the abbey church. The portal suffered severe damage during the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion; the heads of the two kings may have been repaired in the seventeenth century.

Related Image Identifier Link: 
MMA_.cl32.147.R.tif