Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 1 register, 1 arch across (plaquettes) (Front)

Wing, left
Adoring Magi (part of an Adoration of the Magi scene combined with the Nativity on the right wing).
Wing, right
Nativity with Annunciation to the Shepherds; musician shepherd blowing a trumpet; sheep.
Incised pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Graesse 1879: Italian or French workshop, 13th – 14th century.
Erbstein 1884: 15th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of 14th century.
Museum’s opinion 2013: France (Paris), c. 1320-1330.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (architectural details; crowns; hair and beards; along the hems, etc.), red (mouths).

Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Back of the right wing: 16th-century incised coat of arms with three rampant lions (Kingdom of Denmark).
Back of the left wing: 16th-century incised parted coat of arms including two crossed swords (Electorate of Saxony).
The coats of arms were incised after 1548 (see provenance details).

Object Condition
Hole in the upper part of each wing and holes on either side of the hinges.

Comments
The hinges are decorated with a foliated motif and bird heads and the clasps with bearded heads.

Provenance
Collection of Augustus I of Saxony (b. 1526, d. 1586) and his wife Anne of Denmark (b. 1532, d. 1585), who married in 1548 (see coats of arms on the back); mentioned in the 1586-7 inventory of the Treasury (Schatzkammer) of the Dresden Palace (fol. 72v); transferred in 1634 to the Dresden Kunstkammer and recorded in the 1640 inventory (fol. 452v); transferred to the Grünes Gewölbe Museum in 1832.

Bibliography
J. G. T. Graesse, Beschreibender Catalog des k. Grünen Gewölbes, zu Dresden (Dresden, 1879), p. 31.
J. and A. Erbstein, Das Königliche Grüne Gewölbe zu Dresden (Dresden, 1884), p. 18, no. 53.
J. L. Sponsel, Führer durch das Grüne Gewölbe zu Dresden (Dresden, 1921), p. 20.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 212; II, no. 468.
Mit Fortuna übers Meer: Sachsen und Dänemark, Ehen und Allianzen im Spiegel der Kunst (1548-1709), ed. by J. Kappel and C. Brink, exhibition catalogue, Dresden, Dresden Palace, 24 August 2009 - 4 January 2010, no. I. 47.
J. Kappel, ‘Elfenbeinkunst in der Dresdner Kunstkammer. Entwicklungslinien eines Sammlungsbestandes. (1587-1741)’, in Die kurfürstlich-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden: Geschichte einer Sammlung, ed. by D. Syndram and M. Minning (Dresden, 2012), pp. 200-221 (p. 210, n. 89).

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