historiated: Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-JeanMade in Burgundy,...

historiated:

Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-Jean Made in Burgundy, France circa 1250 Limestone

'According to tradition, the monastery of Moutiers-Saint-Jean was founded by the first Christian kings of France, Clovis I and his son Clothar 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.'

The doorway is in the collection of The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Description and image taken from the Met’s website, where you can zoom in on photos of the doorway.

(**Tour 5/5)