Rare maquette de l'édicule de l'église du Saint-Sépulcre

Jerusalem region, Palestine, early 19th century In wood covered with mother-of-pearl plaques and blackened wood. The tower and terrace can be dismantled, revealing the interior of the chapel, entirely veneered in mother-of-pearl, with numerous Latin inscriptions: - on the pediment: Suiu exit dus desei / petra depo - on the terrace: tuum sepulchrum adoramus domine - around the chapel: nenibs odom de cruce posu erunt eum in monum ouou esfex - on the side in Hebrew and Latin: Jerusalem. Condition: missing and restored. H. 34 x W. 42 x D. 17 cm. A marquetry olivewood model, Tomb of Jesus Aedicule (Edicule) in the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, Palestine, early 19th century The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, in the center of Jerusalem's Old City, is a complex of six churches, the 1st of which was founded in 325 by the Roman Emperor Constantine, on the rock of Golgotha. Our model shows the Aedicule, part of the complex in its Ottoman Baroque form (after 1810), built to enclose Christ's tomb. This is the culmination of the Christian pilgrimage. A prestigious souvenir for pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, this model belongs to a limited corpus of objects, made from the late 17th century onwards by local craftsmen in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. These models were made in different sizes and with varying degrees of refinement and complexity. Larger versions, such as ours, can be taken apart to allow the interior to be explored. Complete models of the Holy Sepulchre are extremely rare. These include the ciborium, Golgotha (the place of Christ's torture), the Stone of Unction (where his body was laid after his descent from the Cross), and the Anastasis (the place of his Resurrection). Altered several times, the complex was restored in 1728, then completely rebuilt following a fire in 1808. Some thirty pieces are listed, dating from the 17th to the 19th century, the vast majority of which are held in museums or private institutions, including a recent acquisition by the Musée du Louvre for the Department of Eastern Christianity, Millon Riviera sale, October 6, 2022.