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Openwork triptych, 4 registers (ajouré) (Front, detail)

Openwork triptych, 4 registers (ajouré) (Front, detail)
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Front

Front, detail

Front, detail

Front, detail

Front, detail

Front, detail

Front, detail

Closed

Closed

Subject
Religious. Life of the Virgin. Infancy of Christ.

Repository Institution
musee.metzmetropole.fr

To purchase an image
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Metz, Musée de La Cour d'Or

Inv. 2831

Bone;wood;iron (decorated lock and hinges)

Height: 1050mm
Width: 1105mm (open)
Depth: 200mm

Wing, left
Register 1: angels holding a coat of arms (Aragon); crown.
Register 2: Unidentified scene. Unidentified scene (Pentecost?).
Register 3: Annunciation of the birth of Christ to Joseph (?). Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas); soldier holding a rope.
Register 4: Deathbed scene (possibly Death of the Virgin; Dormition).
Centre panel
Register 1: medallions with male and female figures in bust.
Register 2: Christ and the Samaritan woman, sitting at Jacob's well; Christ asking the woman of Samaria for a drink from her jug. Christ healing a paralytic (?).
Register 3: Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers; angels holding scrolls. Deposition; angels crying.
Register 4: Pietà (Lamentation of the Virgin over Christ's body). Entombment; Holy Women crying.
Wing, right
Register 1: angels holding a coat of arms (Aragon).
Register 2: saint Mary Magdalene anointing Christ's feet (?). Unidentified scene (Christ teaching?).
Register 3: Christ before Caiaphas (?). Christ before Pilate.
Register 4: Death of the Virgin (Dormition).
Base (left to right)
Annunciation with angel coming from the right; lilies. Visitation. Annunciation to Joachim of the birth of the Virgin. Nativity (Adoration of the Shepherds). Seated Virgin and Child; stem of flowers; cross. Adoration of the Magi. Presentation in the Temple (?). Flight into Egypt; angel. Christ among the Doctors.
Openwork Flamboyant tracery; foliated inhabited scrolls (vine; ivy, etc.); hybrids; dragons; animals. Inscriptions: 'Laudate Dominum de celis; laudate eum in excelsis. Laudate eum, omnes angeli eius; laudate eum, omnes virtutes eius'; 'Ego sum resurrectio et vita et qui credit in me etiam si mortuus fuerit vivet'. On base: 'Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel; quia visitavit et fecit redemptionem plebi suae et erexit cornu salutis nobis, in domo David pueri sui, sicut locutus est per os sanctorum'.

Gaborit-Chopin 2003: Spain, later 19th or early 20th century.
Museum's opinion 2013: Spain (?), 19th century.


Attribution
Francisco Pallas y Puig, of Valencia (Gaborit-Chopin 2003)

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of gilding and polychromy (red).

Reverse
Wood casing.

Comments
The arms are those of John (Juan) of Aragon (b. 1478, d. 1497), son of Ferdinand V and Isabella the Catholic.

Provenance
Collection of baron Charles-Joseph de Gargan (d. 1920): sold in 1921; collection of Charlotte Schmitt: her donation to the museum, 9 September 1960.

Bibliography
On Francisco Pallas y Puig: A. Goldschmidt, 'Pseudo-Gothic Spanish Ivory Triptychs of the Nineteenth Century', in The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery (1943), pp. 49-59.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), p. 584 (in relation to no. 293).


Image

© Laurianne Kieffer - Musée de La Cour d'Or - Metz Métropole

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