Man of Sorrows; Christ displaying his wounds; angels holding instruments of the Passion (nails; hammer).
Inscription: 'Tu es recfugium [sic] meu[m]' (You are my refuge).
London 1923: French (?), end of 14th century or early 15th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, 2nd half of the 15th century.
Williamson 2002: France, probably 1430-1440.
Museum's opinion 2009: French or Flemish, late 15th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Flat with crosshatching; two vertically aligned holes in the centre.
Object Condition
Missing: parts on either side (inscription not complete).
Scoring on the right and left sides and the underside.
Comments
It was previously kept in a frame of yellow copper (Koechlin 1924). The inscription is from Psalm 90.
Provenance
Collection of Octave Homberg (b. 1876, d. 1941), Paris: sold, Paris, 11-16 May 1908, lot 492 (purchased by Rosenberg); Collection of Sir Julius Wernher (d. 1912), Bath House, London; collection of Lady Ludlow (in 1923); on loan to English Heritage and displayed at Ranger's House since 2002.
Bibliography
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Carvings in Ivory, exhibition catalogue, London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1923, no. 157, pl. L.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 348, 349; II, no. 978; III, pl. CLXXI.
P. Williamson, 'Medieval Ivory Carvings in the Wernher Collection', in Apollo (May 2002), pp. 17-22, fig. 11.
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