Early Celtic Art

From Its Origins to Its Aftermath

Stuart Piggott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351521406
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Art

For many, perhaps most, the title Early Celtic Art summons up images of Early Christian stone crosses in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall; of Glendalough, lona or Tintagel; of the Ardagh Chalice or the Monymusk Reliquary; of the great illuminated gospels of Durrow or Lindisfame. But as Stuart Piggott notes, the consummate works of art produced under the aegis of the early churches in Britain or Ireland, in regions Celtic by tradition or language, have an ancestry behind them only partly Celtic.

One strain in an eclectic style was borrowed from the ornament of the northern Germanic world, the classical Mediterranean, and even the Eastern churches. Early Celtic art, originating in the fifth century b.c. in Central Europe, was already seven or eight centuries old when it was last traced in the pagan, prehistoric world, and the transmission of some of its modes and motifs over a further span of centuries into the Christian Middle Ages was an even later phenomenon. This volume presents the art of the prehistoric Celtic peoples, the first great contribution of the barbarians to European arts.

It is an art produced in circumstances that the classical world and contemporary societiesunhesitatingly recognize as uncivilized. Its appearance, it has been said by N. K. Sandars in Prehistoric Art in Europe: "is perhaps one of the oddest and most unlikely things to have come out of a barbarian continent. Its peculiar refinement, delicacy, and equilibrium are not altogether what one would expect of men who, though courageous and not without honor even in the records of their enemies, were also savage, cruel and often disgusting; for the archaeological refuse, as well as the reports of Classical antiquity, agree in this verdict."

This book comprises the first major exhibition of Early Celtic Art from its origins and beginnings to its aftermath, and was assembled by Stuart Piggott who taught later European prehistory to Honors students in Archaeolog

6
Adornment and Display

To the frankness and high-spiritedness of their temperament must be added the traits of childish boastfulness and love of decoration. They wear ornaments of gold, tores on their necks, and bracelets on their arms and wrists, while people of high rank wear dyed garments besprinkled with gold

Strabo, IV (from Posidonius, II c. BC)

112 Gold armlet (replica)

second half VBC

Rodenbach, Rheinpfalz, Germany

Speyer, Historisches Museum der Pfalz

D 67 mm/2.63 in.

A striking and highly-wrought piece of gold-work, from the ‘chieftain’s grave’ containing also the gold finger-ring (no. 141), Etruscan imports and an Attic painted vase of c. 450 BC, closely dating the find. Orientalizing and Etruscan prototypes lie behind the design and execution of the armlet, with a central motif of a human head flanked by those of highly stylized rams (cf. no.129). Two further human masks are set symmetrically away from the central composition, and the style is related to several other contemporary finds including an Erstfeld piece (no.117).

Jacobsthal, ECA no.59; Megaw, AEIA no.55

113 Gold tore * (replica)

v/early IV BC

Erstfeld, Kt. Uri, Switzerland

Canton of Uri (original) (also 114-18)

Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum

(replica). D 166 mm/6.53 in*

This tore, with three others (nos. 114, 115, 116) and three armlets (nos.117, 118) constituted a hoard accidentally found in 1962, north of the St Gothard Pass, hidden under a stone. The tore is as near a pair to no. 114 as the individuality of the Celtic artist working on an elaborate piece would permit, and embodies a dream-world fantasy of humans and mountain goats in two antithetical openwork half-crescent panels. Like the other tores in the find, it can be opened and closed with tenon-joints. All appear to be of Rhenish workmanship, from an atelier related to that which produced, for instance, the Rodenbach armlet (no. 112) and their position on a trade-route is significant.

Vogt, Ill.Lon.News 12 Jan 1963, 49, Fig.5 ; Megaw, AEIA no.84

114 Gold tore * (replica)

v/early IV BC

Erstfeld, Kt.Uri, Switzerland

Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum

(replica). D 155 mm/61 in.

The second tore, virtually the pair of no. 113, embodies the same fantastic theme of humans and goats growing out of one another: the pointed shoes recall those on the Manêtin brooch (no.158).

Vogt, Ill.Lon.News 12 Jan 1963, 49, Fig.6; Megaw, AEIA no.84

115 Gold tore* (replica)

v/early IV BC

Erstfeld, Kt.Uri, Switzerland

Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum

(replica). D 174 mm/6·85 in.

The third tore from the Erstfeld find has a similar general treatment to nos.i 13 and 114, but although versions of human figures are used here, they grip or grow out of strange birds, and the tenon joints are gripped in the mouths of horned beasts.

Vogt, Ill.Lon.News 12 Jan 1963, 49, Fig.8

116 Gold tore * (replica)

v/early IV BC

Erstfeld, Kt.Uri, Switzerland

Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum

(replica). D 162 mm/6·37 in.

The fourth Erstfeld tore is conceived on a different plan from the rest, although still symmetrically treated. On either side of a decorated central knop, a boldly treated animal head with prick-ears merges into the wings, body and tail of a bird made up of palmette motifs.

Vogt, Ill.Lon.News 12 Jan 1963, 49, Fig.7

117 Gold armlet * (replica)

v/early IV BC

Erstfeld, Kt.Uri, Switzerland

Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum

(replica). D 84 mm/3.3 in.

The ornament on this armlet is again symmetrically arranged, with on either side of a pair of decorative knops set diametrically, two human masks with ram’s horns and palmette-beards. The armlet is hollow, with tenon-fastening.

Vogt, Ill.Lon.News 12 Jan 1963, 49, Fig.2

118 Pair of gold armlets (replicas)

v/early IV BC

Erstfeld, Kt.Uri, Switzerhnd

Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum

(replicas). D 80 mm/3·14 in.

This is a true pair of armlets, with virtually identical relief ornament of a continuous scrolling stem, with feathered leaf-motifs and tendrils in the coils.

Vogt, Ill.Lon.News 12 Jan 1963, 49, Figs.3, 4

119 Gold tore (replica)

late IV BC

Waldalgesheim, Kreuznach, Germany Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum D 199 mm/7.83 in.

The tore is elaborately constructed from ten component pieces; cast, chased and exquisitely assembled. The decorative motifs, based ultimately on classical tendril and palmette forms, used on this and the bracelets, nos. 117 and 118, from the same find, constitute the type examples of the Waldalgesheim Style of Early Celtic art. The tore was found in the richly furnished grave of a woman together with, among other offerings, an imported Campanian bronze vessel of the late 4th c. BC, thus dating both find and style.

Jacobsthal, ECA no.43; Megaw, AEIA no. 127

120 Pair of gold bracelets (replicas)

late IV BC

Waldalgesheim, Kreuznach, Germany

Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum

D 65 mm/2.55 in.

From the same grave as the tore (no.119) this pair of bracelets is so close in style as to assign all three pieces to one ‘Waldalgesheim Master’. Con-structionally the bracelets are hollow, with elaborate relief ornament in palmette and tendril motifs, and on the central area of embellishment, two human masks, chin to chin, with elaborate eyebrow scrolls, as at Courtisols (no. 124).

Jacobsthal, ECA no.55; Megaw, AEIA nos.124-5

121 Gold armlet (replica)

late IV BC

Waldalgesheim, Kreuznach, Germany Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum D 82 mm/3.22 in.

This ring, worked so as to give the impression of being twisted, comes from the same grave as the gold tore and bracelets (nos.119, 120) and in its complete simplicity offers a contrast to their elaboration: parallels are hard to find in this phase of Early Celtic art.

Jacobsthal, ECA no.54; Megaw, AEIA no.126

122 Gold armlet

? III BC

Gaste, Vojvodina, Jugoshvia (formerly Herceg-márok, Hungary) Budapest, Nemzeti Muzeum W 97-100 mm/3.8-3.93 in.

An extraordinary piece of craftsmanship, made in two pieces and fastening at the terminals, this is a West Celtic piece with its only counterparts in Cantal, Haute-Garonne and Tarn in France, which found its way into the eastern Celtic world in antiquity. It is an intensely ornamented version of the ‘buffer-terminal’ tore, as for instance no. 124.

Jacobsthal, ECA no.62; Megaw, AEIA no.151

123 Bronze tore

v/early IV BC

Vielle-Toulouse, Haute Garonne, France

London, British Museum

D 123 mm/4·84 in.

Tores with their terminals formed by animal heads are rare in the Celtic world: Trichtingen (no. 128) is the most splendid piece, and the tradition is ultimately represented in the British ‘snake-bracelet’ from Snailwell (no.135). This tore has horses’ heads, again of very infrequent occurrence in Celtic metal-work, and their treatment comes close enough to that of early pieces, such as the Panensky Tynec brooch (no. 157), to put the tore in a contempo...