Gothic Ivories Project | Triptych, 2 registers, with arches and bands of roses (décor de roses; colonnettes; frise d'arcatures); known as Triptyque de Saint-Sulpice-du-Tarn (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: Carrying of the Cross.
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi.
Centre panel
Register 1: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Longinus piercing Christ's side; Stephaton giving Christ vinegar; two angels.
Register 2: Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two standing angels holding candlesticks.
Wing, right
Register 1: Deposition; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon.
Pinnacles.

Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Natanson 1951: French, c. 1330-1340. Master of the Death of the Virgin.
Gaborit-Chopin 1978: Paris, 1st quarter of the 14th century.
Paris 1998: Paris, c. 1300.
Paris 2010 and Museum's opinion 2010: France (Paris), last quarter of the 13th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two modern hinges on either side.

Object Condition
Missing: upper part of the central arch (replaced), Christ Child, hands of the angels above the crucifixion, right hand of Stephaton, spear of Longinus; upper pinnacles.

Comments
Possibly made for pope Clement V (see Paris 1998). The triptych sold in Drouot, Paris, 30 November 1994, lot 76 seems to be an exact copy of this piece.

Provenance
Recorded in the church of Saint-Sulpice du Tarn as early as 1644. Purchased by the Museum in 1893.

Bibliography
Exposition départementale de peinture, d'objets d'arts et d'antiquité, exhibition catalogue, Albi, 1863, no. 346.
Exposition rétrospective de l'art français au Trocadéro, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Trocadéro, 1889, no. 117.
E. Saglio, 'Le Triptyque de Saint-Sulpice', in Monuments Piot II (1895), pp. 227-233, pl. XXVIII.
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), p. 190.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIII et XIVe siècles. II. L'atelier des tabernacles de la Vierge', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 34 (1905), pp. 453-471 (p. 469).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 136-137, 142, 149, 158, 200; II, no. 203; III, pl. LI.
French Art 1200-1900, exhibition catalogue, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1932, p. 290.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), pp. 95-96.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 35, fig. 27.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. and fig. 223, 224.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 129.
E. Taburet, Les Ivoires du Musée Cluny (Paris, 1981), pp. 14-15.
A. Erlande-Brandenburg, Le Monde gothique: la conquête de l'Europe, 1260-1380 (Paris, 1987), p.166, fig. 143.
Objets d'art sacré du canton de Lavaur, exhibition catalogue, Albi, Moulins albigeois- Lavaur, 1991, pp. 54-56.
Un trésor gothique. La châsse de Nivelles, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Schnütgen Museum, and Paris, Musée National du Moyen Age- Cluny, 1995-1996, no. 143.
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, p. 156, fig. 22-23a.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, no. 85.
A. and J. Sangouard, 'Le Tarn dans les musées nationaux', in Revue du Tarn, 206 (2007), pp. 195-200.
Palissy database: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/dapapal_fr [accessed September 2009].
Paris Ville Rayonnante, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée de Cluny, 2010, no. 83.
Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, 'Documents et œuvres d'art: remarques sur quelques ivoires gothiques français', Cahiers Archeologiques, vol. 55, 2014, p. 124, pl. 8.

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