Annunciation; dove of the Holy Spirit; angel holding a sceptre; Virgin kneeling in prayer at a prie-Dieu; Virgin to the left; scroll with incised inscription 'MARIA' (?).
Canopy decorated with tracery, pinnacles, arches, twisted columns; foliated decoration.
Longhurst 1929: France, 15th century (believes it to be 'probably genuine').
Williamson and Davies 2014: France or South Netherlandish, late 15th century or possibly 2nd quarter of the 19th century. Radiocarbon dating (2013) found an 89.1% chance that the elephant died between 1433 and 1501.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Flat and smooth, with some scoring in the upper part.
Object Condition
Two holes for dowels.
Comments
This piece belongs to the same object as Inv. 283-1867, also in the Victoria and Albert Museum. See related objects.
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. 156.
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. 7.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 115.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 40.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 190.
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