Bishop saint with mitre and crozier (perhaps saint Firmin); male and female kneeling figures in donor position; architecture evoking a church; tiled roof; pierced quatrefoils; row of blind arches; blessing gesture.
Columns.
Griggs 1904-1907: France, 13th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, mid 13th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, mid 13th century.
Natanson 1951: France, c. 1250-1260.
Giusti 1982: Northern France, c. 1250-1260.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Northern France (possibly Amiens), c. 1250.
Attribution
Unknown
Hinges
Traces of two hinges on either side.
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy and gilding: red (saint's garment), brown (donor's hair and underside of arch); gold (arch).
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Longer edges slightly chamfered.
Object Condition
Missing: crowning elements, lower half of crozier.
Top of the panel with crosshatching to secure pinnacles and central spire (hole through the top surface has pierced the front face).
Shallow post-medieval hole in the underside.
A scored area to the right of the bishop may indicate that something was removed. Williamson suggests that the bishop could be saint Firmin and the space at his feet could have been occupied by the pagan priest Auxilius, his persecutor, in the same pose as on the trumeau of the North doorway of the West portal in Amiens (Williamson and Davies 2014).
Comments
Saint Firmin was the first bishop of Amiens and the patron of the cathedral (after the Virgin).
Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, by 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. 69.
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. 11.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), no. 276-67.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XVII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924),I, pp. 65, 201; II, no. 30; III, pl. XI.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 9.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 32, fig. 14.
P. Giusti, 'Une Madonna in avorio nel Museo Duca di Martina. Plastica minore e scultura monumentale nella Francia del XIII secolo', in Bollettino d'Arte, 67 (1982), pp. 77-86 (fig. 7).
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. 552, in relation to no. 157.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 50.
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