Traveling Communion Set | Harvard Art Museums

Gallery Text

Comprised of a chalice for wine, a cruet to hold holy water, and a paten for bread, this portable, interlocking set made it possible to enact the ritual of communion outside the walls of the church. Priests carried small sets like this when they visited the sick or dying or when traveling into unsettled territories.

This set was crafted by the Angell family, a prominent silversmithing partnership in nineteenth-century London. Accomplished engravers, the Angells decorated the chalice, cruet, and paten with miniature architectural motifs in the Gothic Revival style. The well-worn leather traveling case is original.

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1997.83.1-4
People: Joseph Angell Sr., British (active 1804-c. 1852)
Joseph Angell Jr., British (1815-1891)
Title: Traveling Communion Set
Classification: Vessels
Work Type: vessel
Date: 1841
Places: Creation Place: Europe, United Kingdom, England, London
Culture: British
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/142039

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Silver, gilt interior; case: leather and velvet

Dimensions

7.5 x 4 cm (2 15/16 x 1 9/16 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

hallmark: Struck: lion passant, leopard's head, duty mark, date letter and with maker's mark on the rim of the chalice, the reverse of the paten and base of the wine container and interior of its cover

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: J. Warwick James, Sydney, Australia, purchase, Paul Clarke Stauffer Fund, 1997

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Paul Clarke Stauffer Fund
Accession Year: 1997
Object Number: 1997.83.1-4
Division: European and American Art
Contact: am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Description: Comprising communion cup, paten on central foot, and wine container with stopper and screw cap, each piece octagonal with molded borders, engraved with Gothic double-windows against a continuous pattern of brickwork, the front of the chalice bowl and the center of the paten with a cross and the Sacred Monogram within a rayed circular cartouche; the fitted red leather case of tapering straight-side form

Publication History

Sarah Kianovsky, "The Fogg Art Museum", Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art Newsletter (Fall 2001), vol. 8, no. 2, p. 5, p. 5, repr.
Christopher Hartop, British and Irish Silver in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums/Yale University Press (Cambridge, Mass. and New Haven, 2007), pp.183-184, cat. no. 179, repr. p. 183, details repr. p. 83.

Exhibition History

32Q: 2340 Cabinet Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 09/24/2019

Subjects and Contexts

Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

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1997.83.1-4: Traveling Communion Set