The Museum of the Ways of the Gaudí Palace presents as ‘Piece of the Month’ a 1760 gilded silver monstrance from Sigüeya (León). It will be on display throughout the month of August in a prominent place on the second floor of the Gaudí Palace.
The piece is a portable monstrance of the sun type, which shows the structure of the common type in the 17th and 18th century, with baluster shaft and radiant sun virile for the placement of the Sacred Form.
It has a tetralobulated base on a smooth plinth, two bodies decorated with gadroons and a step that separates them. The knot, richly decorated with vegetal motifs, sits on a base with four winged cherubs. Until it joins the virile, there is a succession of decorated and smooth bodies.
The monstrance has a virile decorated with twelve rays of remarkable width, decreasing at the base, which are joined together with a fine fretwork formed by C’s, stars and flowers, enriched with thirty-seven white and green stones. It rests on a gland on which rests a cherub.
The upper part is topped with a cross, decorated with vegetal motifs, rays in the central square and a stone.
The monstrances or ostensories are pieces of Eucharistic function that have their origin in the institution of the celebration of the Corpus Christi in the middle of the XIII century, although it is from the XV century when the form of turret or templete is adopted, of Gothic trace until the XVI century and as Roman templete in the Renaissance. Already in the 17th century the sun type is fully developed as the example of Sigüeya that the Museum of the Roads keeps.
At the end of the month the piece will move, but will remain, along with those of previous months, until the end of the year. The Gaudí Palace can be visited from Monday to Sunday from 10:00 to 14:00 hours and in the afternoons from 16:00 to 20:00 hours.