Physical Dimensions: overall (height): 36.1 cm (14 3/16 in.)
overall (diameter of base): 17.7 cm (6 15/16 in.)
overall (diameter of bowl): 12.1 cm (4 3/4 in.)
Provenance: Reportedly Poblet Abbey, Catalonia, Spain.[1] Purchased from an unknown source by Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, as French (Limoges), fourteenth century; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, after purchase by funds of the Estate; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] Poblet is a Cistercian abbey in the archdiocese of Tarragona in northeastern Spain. Founded in the twelfth century, the abbey became the burial place of Spanish kings. If this ciborium was at Poblet, it probably left in 1835, when the monks departed and the abbey was sacked during the First Carlist War. See Joaquin Guitert y Fontseré, _Real Monasterio de Poblet_, 3d ed., Barcelona, 1929: 338-341 and Jaime Finestres y de Monsalvo, _Historia del Real Monasterio de Poblet_, 5 vols., Barcelona, 1947-1955.