Biography

The name of this workshop comes from Limoges, a city located in northwestern France. There they produced very characteristic enamels that had a great diffusion through the pilgrimage routes (Arias, 1995; Machado Santos, 2016). They used the color blue, alluding to the sacred realm. This workshop experienced two great periods of splendor: the first between the 12th century and 1370, and the second from the end of the 15th century until 1804 (Caroselli, 1993). In Spain this type of objects arrived both by sea, through the ports of the Cantabrian Sea, and by land, following the routes of the Camino de Santiago. Numerous pieces from this workshop are preserved in Castilla y León; see in this respect: the Hostiario de Limoges (Cathedral of Burgos); Paloma de Limoges (Cathedral of El Burgo de Osma); Urna de Santo Domingo (Museum of Burgos) or the Arqueta-relicario (Santo Domingo de Silos). Others, however, left the country, such as the reliquary casket currently conserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge (United Kingdom).

Bibliography

• ARIAS SÁNCHEZ, Isabel (1995): "Silos y Limoges", nº 13, Boletín del Museo Arqueológico Nacional.
• CAROSELLI, Susan (1993): The Painted Enamels of Limoges: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Ángeles.
• MACHADO SANTOS, Ana Paula (2018): Esmaltes de Limoges e peninsulares em Portugal da época medieval à época moderna, Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar Cultura, Espaço e Memória, Oporto.
• VV.AA. (2001): De Limoges a Silos, vol. catálogo de exposición (Madrid, 2001), Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior, Madrid.