UNKNOWN GOLDSMITH, French
(active c. 1190s)

Reliquary of St Stephen

1190s
Wood, silver and precious and semiprecious stones, height 43 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

One of the first Christian priests, St Stephen suffered a martyr's death by stoning for preaching the new faith. The statuette served as a container for a sacred relic, now lost, that originally fit into an irregularly shaped socket inside the book the saint is holding.