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Openwork pendant (plaque ajourée) (Front)

Openwork pendant (plaque ajourée) (Front)
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Back

Front

Front

Subject
Religious.

Repository Institution
www.mfa.org

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Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

54.932

Ivory;silver-gilt and niello frame;rock crystal

Height: 80mm
Width: 57mm

Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin.

Volbach 1923: France, c. 1400.
New York 1975: 1st half of 15th century.
Randall 1993: Flemish, c. 1410-1440.
Detroit 1997 and Museum's opinion 2011: French (probably Paris), c. 1410-1420.


Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of gilding and polychromy: gold, white, green.

Reverse
The back has been engraved and nielloed with motifs of strawberries and other plants.

Comments
The silver-gilt frame is embellished with leaves and flowers. Randall argued the frame was later (Randall 1993), while Williamson is of the opinion it is original (Detroit 1997).

Provenance
Martin Heckscher collection, Vienna: sold, Christies, London, 6 May 1898, lot 242, to the Staatliche Museen (then Kaiser Friedrich Museum), Berlin (inv. 1898,220). Hinrichsen collection, Berlin. Bought by the Museum of Fine Arts in 1954 for $1056 (Helen and Alice Colburn Fund).

Bibliography
W. F. Volbach, Die Bildwerke des Deutschen Museums, Die Elfenbeinbildwerke (Berlin, 1923), p. 41, no. 98.220.
The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages, exhibition catalogue, New York, The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975, no. 100a.
J. Rasmussen, 'Untersuchungen zum Halleschen Heiltum des Kardinals Albrecht von Brandenburg', in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 28 (1977), p. 130, no. 409, no. 6.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), no. 161.
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, no. 67.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 156 and 159.


Image

Photograph © 15 July 2012 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Credit Line: Helen and Alice Coburn Fund.

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