Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled triptych, 2 registers, 1 arch across (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: standing angel holding a candlestick (part of the Coronation scene).
Register 2: adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi scene).
Centre panel
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin.
Register 2: standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse) under a trefoil arch; standing angels holding candlesticks.
Wing, right
Register 1: standing angel holding a candlestick (part of the Coronation scene).
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon.

Westwood 1876: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Vitali 1976: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Naples 1981: Paris, end of 13th or beginning of 14th century (c. 1290-1310).

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on either side.

Reverse
The triptych is not mobile anymore: the wings and centre panel have been glued onto a piece of wood which is covered with a layer of paper at the back. The centre panel was originally made of 4 pieces: 1 main piece, 2 lateral ones at the back (one is now missing and has been replaced with a wedge of wood), 1 for the upper part of the gable. Soprintendenza label with inscription: '4933'. Older blue and white label with inscription: '10108'. Other labels: '21', 1319 bis'.Two holes in the underside of the centre panel to attach it to a base.

Provenance
Collection of cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo (b. 1744, d. 1827): purchased from his heirs in 1845; part of the collections of the Real Museo Borbonico which, in 1860, became the Museo Nazionale; transferred in 1957 to the Museo di Capodimonte.

Bibliography
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), Appendix, p. 371, no. 1319.
L. Conforti and S. Di Giacomo, Guida di Napoli (Naples, 1895), p. 149, no. 10108.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 136; II, no. 187.
A. O. Quintavalle, 'Medioevo ignorato. Avori gotici nelle pubbliche collezioni napoletane', in Crisopoli (1934), pp. 114-117, fig. 4.
Arte francese a Napoli, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 1967, no. 75, p. 59, pl. LI.
L. Vitali, Avori gotici francesi (Milan, 1976), no. 21.
Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie. Smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania, ed. by P. Giusti, P. Leone de Castris, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Museo Duca di Martina, 1981, p. 94, no. II.1.

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