Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled polyptych (tabernacle) (Front)

Height: 139mm (outer wings); 135mm (centre panel); 117mm (inner wings)
Width: 146mm (total open); 67mm (closed); 25mm (outer wings); 51mm (centre panel); 17mm (inner wings)
Depth: 6mm (outer wings); 21mm (centre panel); 7mm (inner wings); 26mm (closed)

Wings, left
Register 1: Annunciation; Visitation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Seated Virgin and Child; Christ in long robe; Christ making a blessing gesture; Virgin holding a flower; Christ standing on the Virgin's right knee; crown.
Wings, right
Register 1: Nativity with Joseph holding Christ Child.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple with the Virgin holding Christ.

Koechlin 1924: France, late 13th or early 14th century.
Berliner 1926: c. 1300.
Morey 1939: Italian.
Providence 1977: France, late 13th or early 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2012: France, c. 1325.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two ring hinges on either side.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Provenance
J. Dunn-Gardner collection: sold, Durlacher Brothers, London, 29 April 1902, lot 60. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan (d. 1913); gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.

Bibliography
S. R. Meyrick, 'The Doucean Museum', in Gentlemen's Magazine (April 1836), I, p. 587, no. 41 (may be this tabernacle).
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), appendix, p. 177, no. 10 (describes Meyrick's piece more fully; could be this tabernacle, although some discrepancies).
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIII et XIVe siècles. II. L'atelier des tabernacles de la Vierge', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 34 (1905), pp. 462-465.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 125, 127, 128; II, no. 142; III, pl. XXXVIII.
R. Berliner, Die Bildwerke des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums, IV. Die Bildwerke in Elfenbein, Knochen, Hirsch- und Steinbockhorn, mit einem Anhange: Elfenbeinarbeiten der Staatlichen Schlossmuseen in Bayern (Augsburg, 1926), p. 16, in relation to no. 33.
C. R. Morey, 'Italian Gothic Ivories', in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, Mss., 1939), I, pp. 181-203.
Transformations of the Court Style: Gothic art in Europe, 1270 to 1330, ed. by D. Gillerman, exhibition catalogue, Providence, Rhode Island School of Design, 1977, no. 16.
A. St. Clair, E. Parker McLachlan, The Carver's Art: Medieval Sculpture in Ivory, Bone, and Horn, exhibition catalogue, New Brunswick , Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, 1989.

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