Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 3 registers, 5 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Wing, left)

Wing, left
Register 1: Ascension; Virgin and apostles including saint John the Evangelist holding a martyr's palm and saint Peter holding a key.
Register 2: Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas); Christ restores Malchus' ear, cut by saint Peter; soldier with a shield with a face; Death of Judas (Judas hanging).
Register 3: Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds; sheep.
Wing, right
Register 1: Pentecost; Virgin surrounded by the apostles including saint Peter and saint John the Evangelist.
Register 2: Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers holding scrolls. Resurrection; two angels standing on the tomb with hands in prayer.
Register 3: Adoration of the Magi; attendant with horses and whip.

Bohn and Bernal 1857: 15th century.
Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, third quarter of 14th century.
Detroit 1997: French, 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, 1350-1400.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two different sets of two hinges.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
Holes for hinges.

Provenance
Collection of Ralph Bernal, 93 Eaton Square, London (b. 1783, d. 1854) (no. 1627). Purchased by British Museum from John Webb (b. 1776, d. 1869) through Christie's, London, in 1855.

Bibliography
H. G. Bohn and R. Bernal, A Guide to the Knowledge of Pottery, Porcelain and other Objects of Vertu: Comprising an illustrated catalogue of the Bernal collection of works of art, with the prices at which they were sold by auction, and the names of the present possessors. To which are added an introductory essay on pottery and porcelain, and an engraved list of marks and monograms (London, 1857), no. 1627, p. 171.
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 284, pl. LXIV.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 293; II, no. 810.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, fig. 55a, p. 226.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 91, fig. 44, in relation to no. 14.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, pp. 579, in relation to no. 170 and no. 175.

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