The Madonna from Urnes (see no. 1) was placed in a tabernacle shrine. The preserved parts – a crowning in the shape of a miniature church, and the left wing – enable a reconstruction of the entire shrine. Together with similarly shaped fragments in Italy, the shrine parts from Urnes are among the oldest in Europe.

 

The wing’s upper register has traces of painting that could be original, while the lower register features holes for the attachment of reliefs. Recent research has made clear that the figure of a king – one of the Three Kings – probably stems from this tabernacle shrine. It is likely to have occupied the lower section of the now lost outer wing. If this was the case, the shrine from Urnes featured a combination of painting and sculpture. The only known parallel to this is found in the MNAC-museum in Barcelona.

Norway (?), 1150–1200
From Urnes i Luster (Sogn)
Inv. nos MA 297b, MA 331