Journey into crystal

A key material in medieval treasures, rock crystal has its rightful place at the Musée de Cluny, where this rich exhibition is displayed as comfortably as possible under the centuries-old vaults of the frigidarium, even though its scope is much broader. Curator Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty - who must have had a busy few weeks, as she was also preparing the highly interesting exhibition "Treasures of the Kingdom of Lotharingia" in Draguignan (see article) - proposed from the outset a cross-disciplinary perspective, "from Antiquity to the present day", in the manner of some essay topics. While very appealing, this solution does have a few drawbacks, mainly linked to the spatial and financial constraints of both the museum and the RMN-GP, which is co-organising the event.

1. Hellenistic Greece or Rome, 1st century BC - 4th century
Aphrodite Crouching
Rock crystal - 8.5 x 4 x 6 cm
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum
Photo: The J. Paul Getty Museum

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While our esteemed readers will of course be spared the impressive bouquets of almost ’natural’ rock crystals that open the exhibition, notably from the Sorbonne, the elegant Solutrean laurel leaves on display at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle or at the Musée d’Archéologie nationale in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which remain enigmatic: we know of seven examples cut from rock crystal. Let’s take a step outside our strict chronological field by citing the beautiful Crouching Aphrodite from California, a mise en abyme of the story of this goddess who was born from the wave, to whom this material, which simultaneously evokes two elements: water and light, remains attached. The statuette on loan from the Getty Villa in Malibu (ill. 1) fits in the hand, as Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty’s rich leaflet assures us, but visitors are of course condemned to admire it through a sturdy display case, whose transparent wall is not made of rock crystal!

2. Court of Charles the Bald
The Crucifixion, third quarter of the 9th century
Polished and engraved rock crystal, later gilded silver mount - 15.5 x 11 x 4.5 cm
London, The British Museum
Photo: British Museum

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Often luminous but sometimes opaque, the scholarly subject matter unfurled throughout the exhibition is itself a bit like rock crystal, which "awakens spirituality even though it is material", as the two curators beautifully put it. It’s high time to discover the treasures of the medieval churches that form the heart of the exhibition, while remembering that the fascination for this material is also "an important milestone of permanence with Antiquity". Present in "Merovingian times" (see article), rock crystal played a new role in the Carolingian Renaissance, offering its surface to the then-favoured iconography of the Crucifixion, as demonstrated by this masterpiece from the British Museum (ill. 2), which returns to Paris for the first time since 1991! Unfortunately, its…