Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers; sun and moon.
Register 2: Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds; musician shepherd holding bagpipes.
Wing, right
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin; Christ holding a cross; two kneeling angels holding navettes and swinging censers, kneeling on the sides of the bench.
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi.

Glasgow 1988: French or Flemish, c. 1325-1340.
Glasgow Museums' opinion 2013: French, c. 1360-1370.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: green (spandrels; lining of garments).

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Slightly chamfered along the inner edges and illegible inscription on the back of the left wing.

Object Condition
Repairs around all hinges.

Provenance
Possibly Collection of Anton Josef Essingh (b. 1787, d. 1864), Cologne: his sale, Heberle, Cologne, 18 September 1865, lot 872 (the description and measurements correspond). Bought by Sir William Burrell from Francis Harper, 23 October 1946, for £150; given to the City of Glasgow by Sir William and Constance, Lady Burrell, in 1944.

Bibliography
The Burrell Collection: medieval tapestries, sculpture, stained glass with paintings, alabasters, ivories and metalwork, exhibition catalogue, 1977, no. 178.
R. Marks et al., The Burrell Collection (London and Glasgow, 1983), pp. 91-92.
Rarer Gifts than Gold: Fourteenth-Century Art in Scottish Collections, exhibition catalogue, Glasgow, Burrell Collection, 28 April-26 June 1988, no. 10, pp. 17-18.

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