Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 5 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Braunschweig (Brunswick), Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen, Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum

Wing, left
Register 1: Adoration of the Magi.
Register 2: Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit. Visitation.
Wing, right
Register 1: Crucifixion; Virgin and two Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers holding scrolls; rugged cross.
Register 2: saint John the Baptist holding the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei); saint Catherine of Alexandria with wheel and martyr's palm; saint Paul holding a sword and a book; saint Peter holding a key and a book.
Crosshatched background. Pointed trefoils.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges.

Reverse
The iron frame hides the back of the ivory panels, but stars and trefoils have been cut out in the iron.

Object Condition
Missing: fingers of the angel in lower register of the left wing.
Staining along the sides, probably due to the frame.

Provenance
Museum founded in 1754 to house the collections of the Dukes of Braunschweig (this piece is mentioned in Inventory H 29 (finished after 1787), p. 19, no. 232: 'Ein Basrelief oder Diptychon von Elfenbein mit 4 Scenen aus der Lebensgeschichte Christi').

Bibliography
H. Riegel, Die Sammlung mittelalterlicher und verwandter Gegenstände (Braunschweig, 1879), no. 82.
C. Scherer, Die Braunschweiger Elfenbeinsammlung (Leipzig, 1931), no. 13.

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