Keywords: Frankish - Bow Fibula - Walters 542445.jpg Bow fibulas are also called digitated fibulae due to the radiating knobs that resemble fingers or digits emerging from the headplate The knobs of early 4th-century fibulae were functional and held the springs of the pin but in the 6th century became purely decorative and on late 6th-century examples like this one the knobs merged to become an undulating border This fibula is decorated with fields of interlace bands of zigzag patterned neillo and has at its foot a stylized animal head It is a type found in graves dated to the later 6th-early 7th century from burials near the Rhine late 6th-early 7th century Early Medieval gilt bronze with niello cm 10 5 4 6 1 5 accession number 54 2445 21315 Carlebach Gallery New York date and mode of acquisition unknown Walters Art Museum 1959 by purchase Museum purchase with funds provided by the S A P Fund 1959 Medieval Art Philbrook Museum of Art Tulsa 1965 Jewelry - Ancient to Modern The Walters Art Gallery Baltimore 1979-1980 Objects of Adornment Five Thousand Years of Jewelry from the Walters Art Gallery Baltimore Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum New York; Chrysler Museum of Art Norfolk; Carnegie Museum of Art Pittsburgh; San Antonio Museum of Art San Antonio; Philbrook Museum of Art Tulsa; Honolulu Academy of Arts Honolulu; New Orleans Museum of Art New Orleans; Milwaukee Art Museum Milwaukee; Minneapolis Institute of Arts Minneapolis; Toledo Museum of Art Toledo; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Sarasota 1984-1987 Jewelry from the Walters Art Museum and the Zucker Family Collection The Walters Art Gallery Baltimore 1987 place of origin Rhineland Germany Walters Art Museum license Sösdala-Untersiebenbrunn style Medieval metalwork in the Walters Art Museum Jewellery in the Walters Art Museum Merovingian fibulae Media contributed by the Walters Art Museum needs category review Julius Carlebach 6th-century works |