Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; rugged cross; sun and moon.
Tracery; row of blind arches; crosshatched background.
Williamson 1991: Netherlands, c. 1430-1450.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Northern Netherlandish (Utrecht), about 1440-60.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Inscription: '...dug up on the Upper Borough Wall, 1806'.
This ivory is now pasted onto a wooden panel to keep the pieces together.
Object Condition
Hole in each corner and two holes in the sun on the left. Four deep vertical cracks: this ivory is now pasted onto a wooden panel to keep the pieces together.
Provenance
Apparently found (excavation) in the 'Upper Borough Wall', Bath (rather than Colchester as initially suggested), in 1806 (see inscription on the back). Collection of Mr R. S. Blake, Chelmsford (bought in an antiques shop in Battlebridge, Essex in 1987): purchased by the museum from him in 1988.
Bibliography
P. Williamson, 'Acquisitions of Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986-1991', in Burlington Magazine (December 1991), p. 887.
P. Williamson, 'Ivory Carvings in English Treasuries before the Reformation', in Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture presented to Peter Lasko, ed. by D. Buckton and T. A. Heslop (Stroud, 1994), p. 862.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 599, fig. 225, in relation to no. 181.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 173.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.
