Jean d'Alluye was a knight of Philip Augustus and one of the principal nobles of the Loire Valley. His career included a trip to the Holy Land, where he acquired a relic of the True Cross. In 1248 he was buried at La Clarté-Dieu, the abbey near Tours that he had founded in 1239. This effigy, in an attitude of prayer, was turned upside down and used as a bridge over a nearby stream. Around 1900 it was purchased from a Paris dealer. The Cloisters.