Koechlin 1924: French, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: French, 1st half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Hinges
Traces of two missing ring hinges on either side.
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (trace of a halo for the Virgin), red (tracery of the central arch and on the standing angels). The lighter areas on the wings may have been covered in painted tracery.
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Metal hook near the top for hanging.
Object Condition
Missing: crown above head of Virgin; likley croquets.
Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, by 1862: purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.
Bibliography
Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, and more recent periods on loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862..., revised edition, exhibition catalogue (London, 1863), no. 84.
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged according to the dates of their acquisition (London, 1868), I, p. 13.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 91.
H. Semper, 'Über eine besondere Gruppe elfenbeinerner Klappaltärchen des XIV Jahrhunderts', in Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 11 (1898), cols 139ff., 183, 188.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 122; II, no. 115.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), pp. 11-12, pl. IV.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), p. 56.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 61.
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