Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 1 register, 3 arches across (plaquettes) (Back, wing, left)

Wing, left
Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two standing angels holding candlesticks; two angels holding navettes and swinging censers.
Wing, right
Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers holding scrolls; two angels crying.
Pinnacles.

Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924 and Longhurst 1929: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), about 1330-50. Radiocarbon dating (2011): 92.3% probability that the elephant died between 1254 and 1300.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: pupils of the Virgin on the left leaf.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Remains of wax along the lower edges.

Object Condition
Vertical cracks.
Missing: candlestick held by the angel on the right, jet of blood that once passed from Christ's side wound to the Virgin's breast.

Provenance
Collection of Prince Peter Soltykoff (b. c. 1801, d. 1889), Paris: his sale, Paris, Drouot, 8-10, 15-17, 22-24, 29 April and 1 May 1861, lot 254; John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London: 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. 78.
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. 122.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXXIII.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), p. 164, pl. XXXII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 217, 222-224; II, no. 568.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 26, pl. XXII.
J. Gardner, 'The Ivories in the Gambier-Parry Collection', in Burlington Magazine, CIX (March 1967), p. 143.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), pp. 69-70, fig. 40, in relation to no. 8.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, pp. 584-585, in relation to no. 173.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 86.

All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.