The Holy Thorn Reliquary
- Audio guide stop: 101
- Gallery: Room 2a
- Culture: Late Medieval
- Made in: Paris (France)
- Date: 1400 (circa)
- Object type: reliquary, relic
- Materials: gold; thorn; enamel; rock crystal; pearl; ruby; sapphire
- Museum number: WB.67
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is "The Holy Thorn Reliquary," a Late Medieval masterpiece created in Paris around 1400. This intricate gold reliquary is richly decorated with enamel, rubies, pearls, and sapphires, displaying remarkable medieval craftsmanship.
At the base, a castellated fortress is adorned with tiny angels and heraldic panels carrying the arms of Jean, Duke of Berry. Rising from the base is a green enamelled mound with coffins, symbolizing the Resurrection of the Dead. A rock-crystal window cradles the Thorn, believed to be a fragment of Christ’s Crown of Thorns, mounted on a cabochon sapphire. Around it are figures of the Virgin and St. John, with Christ in the center, and above everything, the twelve Apostles and a representation of God the Father.
Inscription in Latin on the scroll reads: "This is a thorn from the Crown of Our Lord Jesus Christ," adding a sacred identity to the piece. Despite a history entangled with forgeries in the 19th century, the original now rests here, part of the British Museum's Waddesdon Bequest collection.
See it in person
The Holy Thorn Reliquary is on display in Room 2a at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and type its audio guide stop number, 101, from the gallery label, or take a photo of it, to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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