ABSTRACT
This paper studies the background of the patronage of the Limousin ciborium found in the region of la Cerdanya in Catalonia and presently preserved in Barcelona, in the collection at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Formal analysis of the ciborium’s style confirms the traditionally established links with the famous Maître Alpais ciborium, yet it also enables us to relate it to a series of Limousin works produced for the Order of Grandmont. Contacts between the Catalan royals and the aforementioned order, which held important priories in the Languedoc (at that time controlled by Catalans), provide support to the hypothesis regarding specific Catalan patronage of this ciborium, which may have been commissioned by an individual who most likely had close ties to the court, and later imported into Catalan lands.
