Gothic Ivories Project | Openwork panel, 1 register, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures; plaque ajourée) (CAST, front)

Saint John the Evangelist with a martyr's palm; seated Virgin and Child; bare-chested Christ; throne decorated with a band of pierced quatrefoils; saint John the Baptist holding the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei).
Tracery. Pinnacles.

Westwood 1876: France, 15th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 15th century.
De Coo 1969: France or Northern Italy, 1st half of the 15th century.
Leeuwenberg 1969: France, last quarter of the 18th century to 1st half of the 19th century.
Museum's opinion 2012: France or Northern Italy, 1st half of the 15th century.

Attribution
Master of the Agrafe Forgeries (Leeuwenberg 1969)

Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Tracery part thinner than the rest of the panel. Label with printed inscription: '190'.

Object Condition
Four holes on the right hand side.

Comments
This piece might have been used to decorate a book cover. A cast was made of this piece in the 19th century and one of these casts is now Courtauld Institute of Art, Witt and Conway Library, no. 314. A copy was in the Passavant-Gontard collection in Frankfurt (c. 1924).

Provenance
Collection of Louis Fidel Debruge-Duménil (b. 1788; d. 1838): sale, Paris 28-31 January 1840, lot 73. Carlo Micheli collection (d. 1895?), Paris: sold with the rest of his collection in 1898 by his daughter, Marie Micheli, to Fritz Mayer van den Bergh (b. 1858, d. 1901), Antwerp; upon his death, his mother Henriëtte had a purpose-built museum erected (1901-1904) to house his collection.

Bibliography
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 499 ('55.73).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 320, n. 2; II, no. 856.
J. De Coo, Catalogue du Musée Mayer van den Bergh (Antwerp, 1933), no. 235.
De Madonna in de Kunst, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 1954, no. 583.
J. De Coo, 'L'ancienne collection Micheli au Musée Mayer van den Bergh', in Gazette des Beaux Arts (Dec. 1965), no. 190.
J. De Coo, Museum Mayer Van den Bergh, Catalogus 2. Beeldhouwkunst, plaketten, antiek (Antwerp, 1969), no. 2146.
J. Leeuwenberg, 'Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories', in Aachener Kunstblätter, 39 (1969), pp. 121-122, fig. 21.
KIK/IRPA database: http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html [accessed October 2009].

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