Register 1: Christ washing the feet of the apostles.
Register 2: Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas); Christ restores Malchus' ear, cut by saint Peter; Death of Judas.
Register 3: Carrying of the Cross; Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and onlookers holding scrolls.
London 1923: French, 14th century. Lent by Lady Ludlow.
Williamson 2002: France, c. 1350-1370.
Museum's opinion 2009: France, c. 1350-1370.
Warren 2014: France (Paris), c. 1350-1370.
Attribution
Master of the Great Passion Diptychs
Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on the left side.
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding (arches).
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Blue and white label with inscription: 'Collection Wernher no. 95'. Blue and white label with inscription: 'Lady Wernher's Collection no. 14' [cancelled].
Comments
The left wing is now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (Inv. AN2008.8; see related object). There is a recess all along the longer sides of the diptych.
Provenance
Collection of Sir Julius Wernher (d. 1912), Bath House, London; collection of Lady Ludlow (in 1923); on loan to English Heritage and displayed at Ranger's House since 2002.
Bibliography
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Carvings in Ivory, exhibition catalogue, London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1923, no. 112, pl. XXXVI.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 285-286.
P. Williamson, 'Medieval Ivory Carvings in the Wernher Collection', in Apollo (May 2002), pp. 17-22, fig. 6.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 579, fig. 218, in relation to no. 170.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.