Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, with quatrefoils (quatre-feuille); reused as part of the binding of a book (Wing, left)

Wing, left
Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin; Virgin praying; blessing gesture; orb and cross. Two angels holding navettes and swinging censers in the upper spandrels. Two musician angels (portable organ; psaltery) in the lower spandrels.
Wing, right
Christ in glory; orb and cross; blessing gesture. Four Symbols of the Evangelists with scrolls in the spandrels: angel of saint Matthew, eagle of saint John the Evangelist; ox of saint Luke and lion of saint Mark.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges.

Reverse
Flat. Three indents along one side of each wing, reminiscent of bookbinding techniques, possibly indicating that the ivory panels were used as binding covers.

Object Condition
Holes on the outer edges, probably for a clasp.
At a later date, the positions of the two leaves were swapped, it may be that the dyptich leaves were secondarily employed as the covers of a small book.

Comments
The two leaves, originally formed a diptych but were swapped around at a later stage, probably to form the binding of a book with the Coronation on the front cover (see the aspect of the back and full details in Williamson and Davies 2014).

Provenance
Photographs suggest it passed through the hands of the Paris and New York firm Demotte. Purchased by the Museum from John Hunt, London, in 1937.

Bibliography
Victoria and Albert Museum Annual Review (1937), p. 4, pl. 3a.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 82.

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