New Publication and Book Launch: ‘Revisiting the Cloisters Cross’

We are delighted to announce the release of ‘Revisiting the Cloisters Cross’. This is a collection of essays that offers new perspectives on the twelfth-century Romanesque ivory cross currently housed at the Cloisters Museum in New York.  

This new volume is published by Courtauld Books Online and is the culmination of a collaborative workshop colloquium held in May 2023, sponsored by the British Archaeological Association and The Courtauld Institute of Art. 

The essays resulted from a workshop colloquium in May 2023. This colloquium aimed to revisit manifold issues: to explore new discoveries in walrus ivory as a medium for medieval objects; to consider how and why the Cross had been bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art rather than another museum; to tackle once more the knotty problems of its dating and place of origin; and to discuss critical features of both the allusive texts displayed on it and the complex iconography.

List of Contents:

• Introduction: Revisiting the Cloisters Cross | Cecily Hennessy and T. A. Heslop
• ‘Through a Glass Darkly’: Understanding and Misunderstanding the Cloisters Cross | Charles T. Little
• The British Museum and the Cloisters Cross | Neil Stratford
• Reflections on the Cloisters Cross in a Preaching Context | Sabrina Harcourt-Smith
• The Cloisters Cross and the Walrus Tusk | Robyn Barrow
• The Cloisters Cross and the Sphere of Henry the Lion and Matilda of England | Cecily Hennessy
• The Cloisters Cross and the Oslo Corpus Revisited | T. A. Heslop
• Conclusions | Cecily Hennessy and T. A. Heslop