Cross

Museum number:
7-3544
Permalink:
ark:/21549/hm21070003544
Accession number:
Acc.374
Description:
Cross; wood; carved deeply; painted; inscriptions at top and base; brown and yellow to green. 5.25 x 10 x 7/8 inches. It is very old, but there is nothing in the art work to determine its exact age. Because of the careful workmanship and fine attention to detail in carving, one feels it must have been used in a monastery chapel or chapel in a private home. Crosses are not usually hung on the walls of eastern Orthodox homes. They are used in the liturgy and as decorations in churches. Since, at the end of each ceremony, the congregation comes to the cross to kiss it, it is possible that the words at the top of the cross have been “kissed away.”
Donor:
Phoebe Apperson Hearst
Collection place:
Russia
Verbatim coll. place:
Russia
Collector:
Phoebe Apperson Hearst
Materials:
Paint (coating) and Wood (plant material)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Crosses (visual works)
Function:
5.1 Religion and Divination: Objects and garb associated with practices reflecting submission, devotion, obedience, and service to supernatural agencies
Production date:
Before 1900 AD
Accession date:
1909
Department:
Europe and western Russia (except Classical Mediterranean)
Images:
Hearst Museum object titled Cross, accession number 7-3544, described as Cross; wood; carved deeply; painted; inscriptions at top and base; brown and yellow to green. 5.25 x 10 x 7/8 inches. It is very old, but there is nothing in the art work to determine its exact age. Because of the careful workmanship and fine attention to detail in carving, one feels it must have been used in a monastery chapel or chapel in a private home. Crosses are not usually hung on the walls of eastern Orthodox homes. They are used in the liturgy and as decorations in churches. Since, at the end of each ceremony, the congregation comes to the cross to kiss it, it is possible that the words at the top of the cross have been “kissed away.”
Legacy documentation:
Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Cross, accession number 7-3544, described as Cross; wood; carved deeply; painted; inscriptions at top and base; brown and yellow to green. 5.25 x 10 x 7/8 inches. It is very old, but there is nothing in the art work to determine its exact age. Because of the careful workmanship and fine attention to detail in carving, one feels it must have been used in a monastery chapel or chapel in a private home. Crosses are not usually hung on the walls of eastern Orthodox homes. They are used in the liturgy and as decorations in churches. Since, at the end of each ceremony, the congregation comes to the cross to kiss it, it is possible that the words at the top of the cross have been “kissed away.”Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Cross, accession number 7-3544, described as Cross; wood; carved deeply; painted; inscriptions at top and base; brown and yellow to green. 5.25 x 10 x 7/8 inches. It is very old, but there is nothing in the art work to determine its exact age. Because of the careful workmanship and fine attention to detail in carving, one feels it must have been used in a monastery chapel or chapel in a private home. Crosses are not usually hung on the walls of eastern Orthodox homes. They are used in the liturgy and as decorations in churches. Since, at the end of each ceremony, the congregation comes to the cross to kiss it, it is possible that the words at the top of the cross have been “kissed away.”

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