Limosin's Triumph of the Eucharist and the Catholic Faith

A rare enamelled group portrait, this plaque represents living and deceased members of the Guise family in an allegory of the Catholic faith. From the first generation, Claude, Duke of Lorraine, and his brother Jean, Cardinal de Lorraine, both deceased in 1550, stroll at centre. François, 2nd Duke of Guise and like his father famed for battles against heretics, pushes the chariot wheel over the bodies of Protestants. His brother Charles, identified by his emblem of an ivy-covered obelisk with the motto te stante virebo (With you standing, I shall flourish), holds a text that may refer to his address at the Colloque de Poissy, in which he proposed moderation in the current religious conflict. Seated in the chariot is the family matriarch, Antoinette de Bourbon, holding a chalice and host, symbols of transubstantiation—the miracle by which the bread and wine of the Eucharist become the actual body and blood of Christ—a central tenet of Catholicism.