Belt Buckle
Unknown Artist
c. 525–560
Medium
bronze with garnets, glass, mother of pearl, gold foil, traces of gilding; bronze and glass
Dimensions
w. 7.1 cm, d. 2.7 cm, l. 13.2 cm
Classification
Jewelry
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
2001.119
About this artwork
The art of the European Migration Period (3rd-7th centuries AD) is almost exclusively one of personal adornment-a portable art that followed men and women to their graves. Belt buckles with large rectangular attachment plates have been discovered in cemeteries across the Iberian Peninsula-now occupied by Spain and Portugal-from the period of Visigothic occupation (about AD 412-711). Their decoration varies. Finer examples, like this one, are distinguished by brilliantly inlaid semi-precious ston...