Gothic Ivories Project | Wing, left (part of a diptych), 2 registers, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Register 1: Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit; flowery bush; Visitation.
Register 2: Journey of the Three Magi; Magi on horseback; three Magi before Herod.
Band of pierced quatrefoils. Band of pierced arches. Pinnacles. Rosettes.

Koechlin 1924: France, 1st third of 14th century.
KIK/IRPA database [accessed 2009]: France, last third of the 14th century.
Chiesi 2011: France, c. 1320-1340.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of three missing hinges on the right side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (helmets; crowns; hair; beards), red (architectural details; clothes; rosettes), blue (clothes), green (clothes).Painted foliated decoration on the right edge of the panel.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Corners and centrepiece with carved decoration.

Object Condition
Hole at the foot of the Annunciation (filled with wood).
Double hole in the upper part of the panel. Holes in the outer edge of the panel, probably to secure a clasp.

Comments
The right wing of this diptych is also in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Inv. 97 C).

Provenance
Collection of Francis Douce (b. 1757, d. 1834); collection of Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick (b. 1783, d. 1848), by bequest, 1834; collection of Major-General Augustus Meyrick, by bequest (until c. 1872). Carrand collection: bequeathed by Louis Carrand (d. 1888) to the Museo del Bargello in 1888.

Bibliography
S. R. Meyrick, 'The Doucean Museum', in Gentlemen's Magazine (April 1836).
E. Molinier, Histoire générale des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie (Paris, 1896), I: Les Ivoires, pl. XX.
I. B. Supino, Catalogo del Regio Museo Nazionale di Firenze (Rome, 1898), pp. 226-227, no. 97-98.
E. Gerspach, 'La Collection Carrand au musée national de Florence', in Les Arts, 32 (August 1904), p. 32, no. 32.
R. Koechlin, 'Les Diptyques à décor de roses', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1918), pp. 240-241.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 158; II, no. 268; III, pl. LXX.
De Madonna in de Kunst, 1954, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 1954, no. 288.
L. Vitali, Avori gotici francesi (Milan, 1976), p. 23, no. 9.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. and fig. 234 (mistakenly designated as Inv. 102 and Inv. 103).
KIK/IRPA database: http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html [accessed October 2009].
B. Chiesi, Catalogo degli avori gotici del Museo Nazionale del Bargello (unpublished PhD thesis - Università degli Studi di Firenze, 2011), pp. 164-178.

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