Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled polyptych, with arches (tabernacle; colonnettes; frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Wings, left
Register 1: Visitation; Annunciation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child; angel crowning the Virgin; Virgin holding a flower in her right hand; Christ holding a fruit in his left hand.
Wings, right
Register 1: Nativity; Virgin holding the swaddled child.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Virgin holding Christ.

Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: French, 1st half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France (Paris or possibly Champagne or Burgundy), c. 1320.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two modern ring hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy and gilding (not original): gold (crowns, architectural details, flower), red (lips; inside the Virgin's veil). Painted trefoils and quatrefoils in the gables and spandrels (original).

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Parallel striation probably made in the mid-19th century to facilitate mounting on a velvet-covered backboard which was still in place in 1929.

Object Condition
Missing: strips of crockets on the front and side faces of the central canopy.
Parallel striation probably made in the mid-19th century to facilitate mounting on a velvet-covered backboard which was still in place in 1929. Four holes in back panel of the central section, probably also connected with this mount.
The inner wing on the right has been broken and repaired at the level of Joseph's head.
Underside scored and with two dowel holes to attach to a base.
Wood fills in the spaces left by the original hinges.
Wood insert at the tip of the outer left wing.

Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London; on loan to the Museum from 1867; purchased from him by the Museum in 1871.

Bibliography
List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington, Acquired During the Year 1870, Arranged According to the Dates of Acquisition (London, c. 1870), p. 31.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 134, ill.
H. Semper, 'Über eine besondere Gruppe elfenbeinerner Klappaltärchen des XIV Jahrhunderts', in Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 11 (1898), cols. 121ff, 187.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), p. 166, pl. XXXIV.
R. Koechlin, Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, ed. by A. Michel, II (Paris, 1906), p. 476.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 126-127; II, cat. 147.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 12, pl. VIII.
A. Michel, L'histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu¿à nos jours, 8 vols, 17 parts (Paris, 1905-1929), II, p. 476.
J. Cherry and J. Lowden, Medieval Ivories and Works of Art: The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 2008), p. 61.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 44.

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