Inv. 13 A
Seated Virgin and Child; kneeling bishop with mitre and crozier in donor position; unidentified military saint; saint Peter holding a key; angel holding the crozier; head of dragon. Monster swallowing the volute (dragon).
Seven foliated terminals featuring prophets holding scrolls with inscriptions; God the Father in the centre (modern replacement).
Saints under arches around the hexagonal knop, identified by inscriptions: saint Andrew holding a book and a cross ('S[ANCTVS] ANDREAS'), saint Anthony abbot with a bell, a staff and a tau on his robe ('S[ANCTVS] ANTONIVS'), saint James holding a staff ('S[ANCTVS]. IACOBVS'), saint Peter (S[ANCTVS] PETRVS),
Inscription running along the volute: 'TV ES PETRVS E[T] SUPER ANCC [PE]TR[AM AEDIFI]CABO ECLESIA MEA EGO TIBI' and, on the other side: 'DAB[O C]LAVE REGNOM [SIC] CELORUM QVECONQVE LIGAV[ERIT] SVPER TERAM [sic]'.
Foliated decoration.
Gaborit-Chopin 1988: Central or Southern Italy, before 1343.
Tomasi 1999: c. 1360-1390.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Northern Italy (Venice), c. 1360-1370.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive gilding and polychromy: gold, black and red.
Painted inscriptions: ' 'TV ES PETRVS E[T] SUPER ANCC [PE]TR[AM AEDIFI]CABO ECLESIA MEA EGO TIBI', and, on the other side: 'DAB[O C]LAVE REGNOM [SIC] CELORUM QVECONQVE LIGAV[ERIT] SVPER TERAM [sic]'.
Beside the apostles around the knop: 'S[ANCTVS] ANDREAS', 'S[ANCTVS] ANTONIVS', 'S[ANCTVS]. IACOBVS', 'S[ANCTVS] PETRVS'.
Reverse
Carved on both sides.
Object Condition
Missing: head of God the Father (replaced with a bronze head); two panels around the base, featuring two saints (on either side of saint Andrew).
Breaks on the back of the bishop and across the Virgin's neck.
Provenance
May have been made for Pietro di Monte Caveoso, bishop of Acerenza in Basilicata, who came from Venosa to Acerenza in 1334 and died in 1343 (Gaborit-Chopin 1988); this has been contested by Michele Tomasi who proposed that the commissioner was Pietro Giovanni de Baraballi, archbishop of Acerenza and Matera between 1392 and 1395 (Tomasi 1999). From the cathedral of Acerenza; Castellani collection (1884),
Bibliography
A. Campani, Guida per il visitatore del R. Museo Nazionale nell'antico palazzo del Potestà in Firenze (Florence, 1884), pp. 367-368.
P. B. Cott, Siculo-Arabic Ivories (Princeton, 1939), no. 181.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Avori medievali - Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence, 1988), pp. 73-75, no. 20.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, p. 216 (in relation to no. 50).
M. Tomasi, 'Contributi allo studio della scultura eburnea trecentesca in Italia', in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, IV serie, IV-1, 1999, pp. 221-246 (pp. 233-236).
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 152.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.
