Set of four enamelled silver plaquettes, 1520–30, German, Augsburg or Nuremberg. Silver, enamel, gold. Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Acquisitions Fund, 2015; 2015.388.1-2-3-4 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1520–30, German, Augsburg or Nuremberg. Silver, enamel, gold. Overall (confirmed): 2 7/16 × 1 11/16 in. (6.2 × 4.3 cm). Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Acquisitions Fund, 2015; 2015.388.1 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Capture of Christ, 1520–30, German, Augsburg or Nuremberg. Silver, enamel, gold. Overall (confirmed): 2 7/16 × 1 3/4 in. (6.2 × 4.4 cm). Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Acquisitions Fund, 2015; 2015.388.2 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Crowning with Thorns, 1520–30, German, Augsburg or Nuremberg. Silver, enamel, gold. Overall (confirmed): 2 7/16 × 1 3/4 in. (6.2 × 4.4 cm). Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Acquisitions Fund, 2015; 2015.388.3 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Resurrection, 1520–30, German, Augsburg or Nuremberg. Silver, enamel, gold. Overall (confirmed): 2 7/16 × 1 3/4 in. (6.2 × 4.5 cm). Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Acquisitions Fund, 2015; 2015.388.3 © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

These sculptural reliefs (2015.388.1–.4) display extraordinary, jewel-like enameling accomplished through an innovative technique involving molten glass paste built up over an armature of gold wires on a silver base. In expressive detail, they represent four scenes of Christ’s Passion at a tiny scale—fully appreciable only to those privileged enough to view the reliefs at close range. (The compositions owe more than a little to the Small Passion print series by the famous Northern Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer.) Expensive as they were, the plaques would have been worth only a fraction of the treasure in the container they decorated: most likely some lost relic, imbued with spiritual power and believed to bridge our world with the divine. [Elizabeth Cleland, 2017]