Architectural Fragment: Section of an Arcade

This spectacular fragment features vegetal and geometric motifs decorating sections of a sculpted arch. It originally formed a segment of the Cluny choir screen, a wall-like division between the space of the choir, reserved for the clergy singing the monastic hours, and the nave, the main area of the church where lay people gathered. The Smart Museum fragment is a sculptural “sibling” of another fragment at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: both pieces were once part of Cluny’s choir screen. Within the sacred space of the church, the richly carved choir screen—now surviving only in dispersed fragments—framed the impressive performance of daily rituals by about three hundred Cluniac monks at the height of the monastery's power.