Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled panel (centre panel; fragment of a triptych or polyptych), 2 registers, 1 arch across (Front)

Register 1: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; sun and moon.
Register 2: standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two standing angels holding candlesticks; angel crowning the Virgin.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: French, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (probably Paris), c. 1300.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (ghost of three-dot patterns on the decorated background; along the hems), foliated decoration on the borders of the upper gable.

Reverse
Smooth, with longer edges chamfered. Cloud-like patterns of ivory cement indicating ivory from outer curve of tusk just below the husk.

Object Condition
Missing: Virgin's right hand, both hands and candlestick of the right hand-side angel, candle of the left hand-side angel, upper part of the gable and crockets. Part of the left border has broken around the upper hinge.
Underside crosshatched and with three holes to attach onto a pedestal.
Recess at the top revealed by the chipped surface held the tongue of the now missing gable (originally made of a different piece of ivory).
Later central hole in the upper part of the panel.

Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, in 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. 87.
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. 9.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 93.
H. Semper, 'Über eine besondere Gruppe elfenbeinerner Klappaltärchen des XIV Jahrhunderts', in Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 11 (1898), col. 139.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 136; II, no. 195.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 15.
A. H. Levine, Making and Meaning in the Art of the Middle Ages. On Composite Gothic Ivory Carvings (M.A. diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, 2011), pp. 14, 23-24, pl. 15.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 56.

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