Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 6 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Diptych, 2 registers, 6 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Diptych, 2 registers, 6 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Front)

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Subject
Religious. Infancy of Christ. Passion.

Repository Institution
www.museum-august-kestner.de

To purchase an image
www.hannover.de

Hannover, Museum August Kestner

Inv. 437

Ivory, metal (hinges)

Height: 163mm
Width: 104mm (each wing)

Wing, left
Register 1: Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers. Deposition with the Virgin holding Christ's hand; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers.
Register 2: Annunciation; dove of the Holy Spirit; vase of lilies. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds; musician shepherd holding a shawm.
Wing, right
Register 1: Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body), with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; tomb decorated with arches. Resurrection; two angels standing on the tomb with hands in prayer; two soldiers asleep; tomb decorated with medallions enclosing trefoils.
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi. Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas); Christ restores Malchus' ear, cut by saint Peter; woman holding a lantern (Hedroit?).
Pointed trefoils.

Koechlin Number: 0353

Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2013: Germany (Cologne), 2nd half of 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges.

Reverse
Flat, with rounded edges.

Object Condition
Both wings are broken in several places, and parts of the background are missing (in the Crucifixion scene, the Annunciation, the Entombment and the Adoration of the Magi). Parts of the border missing.
The piece has been damaged by fire in 1943.

Provenance
Collection of Friedrich Georg Hermann Culemann (b. 1811, d. 1886), Hannover (no. 483); acquired by the city of Hannover in 1887.

Bibliography
Führer durch das Kestner-Museum, Part 2: Mittelalter und Neuzeit, ed. by C. Schuchhardt (Hannover, 1904), pp. 9ff, no. 24, fig. 9.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 184; II, no. 353.
F. Stuttmann, Mittelalter I: Bronze, Email, Elfenbein (Hannover, 1966), p. 120, no. 122, fig. on p. 191.

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