One of the twenty-four Elders

The three west portals, also known as the royal portals, of Chartres Cathedral had been carved some fifty years before the church was rebuilt since the conflagration in 1194 spared the main façade. The portals display a complex iconographic programme, with the middle one focusing on the Second Coming of Christ. The early Gothic carvings on the portal’s tympanum depict Christ Enthroned, surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists. The sculptures of the archivolt show angels and – as referred to in the Book of Revelations – the Twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse worshipping Christ, wearing crowns and holding vials of perfume or musical instruments. A cast of one of them is exhibited here. Commissioned by the museum in 1909, the cast was made by August Gerber in Cologne. It was exhibited in the Romanesque Hall in 1910. In 1997 the copy was transferred to the Library of the Museum of Fine Arts.