David L. Simon

Romanesque Sculpture in North American Collections. XXV. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part V. Southwestern France

Entwined tendrils often terminating in scrolled ends frame fleshy palmettes on this impost block, which has been badly chipped, particularly at the corners. The centers of the palmettes are deeply undercut as are the spaces between palmette and tendril, thus creating a rich interplay of light and shade. The closest connections to this impost can be found with sculpture along the pilgrimage roads to Santiago de Compostela, specifically at San Isidoro of Le6n (M. S. Byne, The Sculptured Capital in Spain [New York, 1926], pl. 70), the cathedral of Jaca (J. Gudiol Ricart and J. A. Gaya Nufio, Ars Hispaniae [Madrid, 1948], V, figs. 197, 204-5), the basilica of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse (M. Durliat, Haut-Languedoc roman [La Pierre-qui-Vire, 1978], pl. 34), and the monuments most directly related to them. Although the chronology of these monuments is the subject of an ongoing debate, it is probable that this impost can be dated to the end of the