Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers holding scrolls; cruciform halo.
Pierced rounded trefoils in the spandrels.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Probably French, about 1360-1390.
Attribution
Unknown
Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on the left side (original hinging). Five holes on the right side (when viewed from the back) exiting on the edge (later hinging system, probably using cords, changing the panels into the binding of a booklet).
Polychromy - Gilding
Green staining (trefoils).
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Five notches along the right side when viewed from the back. Inscription '4662.'
Object Condition
Worn.
Face of the holy woman to the right chipped.
Crack in upper left corner on the reverse.
Central hole in the upper part of the panel (filled with wax). Hole in the outer border for missing clasp.
Comments
The left wing of the diptych, showing the Adoration of the Magi, is now in the Ashmolean Museum (Inv. AN1685 A.581). See related objects.
The leaves were bound together and separated before the middle of the 17th century when the Oxford leaf entered the Tradescant collection.
Provenance
In England before the middle of the 17th century (see early provenance of the left leaf now in the Ashmolean Museum). Given to the museum by Dr. Walter Leo Hildburgh, F. S. A in 1949.
Bibliography
D. A. Porter, Ivory Carvings in Later Medieval England 1200-1400 (unpublished PhD thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1974), no. 48.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 570-571, in relation to no. 165.
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