Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges on one side (Nativity, Presentation in the Temple) and on either side (two at the front, two at the back; Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Magi).

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of post-medieval gilding and polychromy: gold (haloes; hair; beard; architectural details; horns; roundels in the spandrels; decoration along the hems, trees, etc.), green (ground; clothes), black, blue, red.
The painting and gilding are much restored. It seems likely that at least some of the polychromy duplicates an original scheme.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.
On each plaque, inscription '7798.'
Plaques numbered '1, 2, 3, 4.'
Nativity plaque: inscription '2m' or '1m.'

Object Condition
The upper border of each plaque is pierced by small drill holes of uncertain function. The outer leaves are pierced once in this manner, towards their outer borders, while the two inner plaques are both pierced twice.

Comments
Koechlin was of the opinion that the upper register diptych and the lower register diptych did not originally go together, as the architecture differs. He therefore assigned two numbers to these two parts (Koechlin 1924).
The four leaves once folded up like a concertina: closed it was 28mm deep.

Provenance
Collection of Louis Fidel Debruge-Duménil (b. 1788, d. 1838) and heirs: Debruge-Duménil sale, Paris,12 March 1850, lot 160. Collection of Prince Petr Soltykoff (b. c. 1801, d. 1889): Soltykoff sale, Paris, 29 April and 1 May 1861, lot 239; purchased by Aires (or Ayers, apparently a parisian art dealer). In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, by 1862: purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.

Bibliography
J. Labarte, Description des objets d'art qui composent la collection Debruge-Duménil (Paris, 1847), no. 160, p. 458.
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. 83.
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. 12.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), no. 237-67, p. 91.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXX and XXXIII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 194, 209, 211, II, nos. 448, 495; III, pl. LXXXVII (upper register).
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), pp. 23-24, fig. 2.
C. T. Little, ‘Passion booklet’, cat. no 50 in the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1984), p. 133.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 80.