Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 1 register, 1 arch across (plaquettes; colonnettes) (Front)

Wing, left
Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two angels holding candlesticks; two angels crowning the Virgin; Virgin trampling a monster (basilisk; dragon); Virgin holding a sceptre with a bird in her right hand.
Wing, right
Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist; angels holding the sun and moon; angel crying; Adam collecting Christ's blood in a chalice at the foot of the cross.
Medallions enclosing trefoils with protruding cones in the spandrels. Beaded border.

Molinier 1890: Flemish style, late 14th or early 15th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Basel 1951: France (Paris), 2nd half of the 14th century.
Schnitzler, Volbach, Bloch 1964: France, 3rd quarter of the 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2012: Germany (possibly Mainz), last quarter of the 14th century.

Attribution
Atelier of the Kremsmünster Diptych (Koechlin 1924)

Hinges
Two metal hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy and gilding: green (background, garments, dragon), gold (hair; capitals).

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
Two holes on either side; nail on right side.

Provenance
Collection of Anton Josef Essingh (b. 1787, d. 1864), Cologne: his sale, Heberle, Cologne, 18 September 1865, lot 870. Collection of Frédéric Spitzer, Paris: his sale, 1893, lot 140. Collection of Joseph Brummer, New York: sale, 20-23 April 1949. Collection of Ernst and Martha Kofler-Truniger, Lucerne: acquired for the Cloisters Collection in 1971.

Bibliography
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 105 (E. Molinier).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 300-302; II, no. 828.
L'Apocalypse: tapisserien aus der Kathedrale von Angers, exhibition catalogue, Basel, 1951, no. 29, p. 28.
H. Schnitzler, F. Volbach, P. Bloch, Skulpturen, Elfenbein, Perlmutter, Stein, Holz Europäisches Mittelalter, Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, 2 vols (Lucerne, 1964), no. S.93.
C. M. Kaufmann, 'The Kofler Collection. An Important Exhibition in Zurich', in The Connoisseur 156 (May 1964), pp. 15-23, fig. 9.
Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, exhibition catalogue, Zurich, 1964, no. 756, p. 83.
P. Lasko, 'A Notable Private Collection', in Apollo (June 1964), pp. 464-473, ill. 18, p. 470.
P. Bloch et al., 'Mittelalterliche Kunst der Sammlung Kofler-Truniger, Luzern', in Aachener Kunstblätter 31 (1965), p. 27.
Weltkunst aus Privatbesitz, ed. by H. May, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Kunsthalle, 1968, no. D 15.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. One hundred first Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1970, through June 30, 1971 (1971), p. 21, mentioned as purchase.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions 1965-1975 (1975), p. 156 (ill.)
Medieval Art from Late Antique through Late Gothic from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, exhibition catalogue, Moscow, State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and Leningrad, The Hermitage, 1990, no. 52.

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