Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled polyptych, 2 registers, with arches (tabernacle; colonnettes; frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Wings, left
Register 1: Flagellation. Carrying of the Cross with the Virgin helping Christ; hammer.
Register 2: Visitation. Annunciation; vase of lilies; scroll with inscription 'AVE M[aria]'.
Register 3: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Register 1: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; cruciform halo; angels holding the sun and the moon; painted chalice collecting Christ's blood at the foot of the cross; titulus with inscription: 'IEZVM [na]ZAREN[um]'.
Register 2: seated Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two standing angels holding candlesticks.
Wings, right
Register 1: Deposition with the Virgin; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet. Entombment (anointing of Christ's body).
Register 2: Nativity with Joseph holding Christ.
Register 3: Joseph holding a candlestick and a basket of doves brought as offerings; Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon.
Medallions enclosing pierced trefoils in the spandrels.

Labarte 1847: Italy, 13th century or 14th century.
Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Petzel 2007: beginning of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Germany (probably Cologne or Middle Rhine), c. 1310-20.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of three hinges on either side (modern).

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy (mostly original): gold, red and green (haloes; eyebrows; hair and beards; along the hems;chalice; architectural details; lining of the Virgin's veil; clothes; books; crown of thorns; basket; tracery decoration on the tomb; painted decoration on the pedestal imitating enamelled panels; etc.), black (eyes; inscriptions; shoes), grey (spandrels). Painted chalice collecting Christ's blood at the foot of the cross.

Reverse
The centre of the back is carved with architectural ornament in low relief (2 registers, 2 arches across; medallion enclosing a quatrefoil; trefoils; tracery).

Object Condition
The inner left wing has two long cracks which have been disguised with painted foliated decoration.
Missing: figure at the foot of the cross (indicated by crosshatching), possibly saint mary Magdalene or a kneeling donor (see Williamson and Davies 2014); crockets along the central gable and crestings of oak or vine leaf (later restorations made of bone); section of the moulding on the right sude of the pedestal.
Rear right foot damaged.
The inner middle hinges have been removed and the holes filled.

Comments
According to Williamson, the missing figure at the foot of the cross may have been an abbess (Williamson and Davies 2014).

Provenance
Collection of Louis Fidel Debruge-Duménil (b. 1788, d. 1838): sale, Paris, January-March 1849, lot 149. Collection of Prince Petr Soltykoff (b. c. 1801, d. 1889): sale, Paris, Drouot, 8-10, 15-17, 22-24, 29 April and 1 May 1861, lot 237; purchased at this sale by John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London: purchased from Webb by the Museum in 1866.

Bibliography
J. Labarte, Description des objets d'art qui composent la collection Debruge-Duménil (Paris, 1847), no. 149, p. 455.
Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, and more recent periods on loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862..., revised edition, exhibition catalogue (London, 1863), no. 73.
J. Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels au Moyen Âge et à l'époque de la Renaissance (Paris, 1864-66), Album i, pl. XVIII.
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged according to the dates of their acquisition (London, 1868), I, p. 17.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Medieval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), no. 140-66.
H. Semper, 'Über eine besondere Gruppe elfenbeinerner Klappaltärchen des XIV Jahrhunderts', in Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 11 (1898), cols. 136-137.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXX.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIII et XIVe siècles. II. L'atelier des tabernacles de la Vierge', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 34 (1905), pp. 453-471 (p. 470).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 130, 132, 133; II, no. 176; III, pl. XLIV.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 14, pl. X.
C. R. Morey, 'Italian Gothic Ivories', in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, Mss., 1939), I, p. 193, no. xii, p. 196.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory. Gothic Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), p. 41.
H. van Os, Een engel in de koffer: Willem Neutelings en zijn verzameling (Baarn, 1996), p. 18, fig. 16.
K. K. Petzel, Elfenbein Diptychon mit Passions und Erscheinungsszenen (Cologne, 2007), p. 16, fig. 5.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 46.

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