MIT Libraries homeDome

Detail, lower register, angel with the righteous, and inscription; In the late Victorian era, plaster casts of outstanding world artworks were produced by various vendors for museums (and world's fairs), spurred by an initiative of Prince Albert in Great Britain. Just a few museums, like the V&A and the Musée national des Monuments Français (Galerie des Moulages) went to extraordinary lengths to develop their own large, unique casts. The present cast collection (in what was the Palais du Trocadéro), was proposed by Viollet-le-Duc in 1879. The cast is by Jules Fontaine; it was restored in 1949 by Georges Latapie. An inscription on the west tympanum of St Lazare, Autun (now Autun Cathedral), reads gislebertus hoc fecit (‘Gilbert made this’). The subject of the tympanum is the Last Judgment and includes Christ in a central mandorla and the weighing of souls and the dammed in the lower register. The original is in stone and dates from ca. 1130-1140. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 6/13/2012)