Gothic Ivories Project | Triptych, 2 registers, with ogee arches; known as the Triptych of John Grandisson (Wing, right)

Wing, left
Register 1: saint Peter holding a church.
Register 2: saint Stephen holding stones.
Centre panel
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin.
Register 2: Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist and soldiers.
Wing, right
Register 1: saint Paul holding a sword.
Register 2: saint Thomas Becket with a bishop's mitre and crozier.
Roses and Grandisson coat of arms in the spandrels.

Labarte 1847: English, 15th century.
Dalton 1909: English, 3rd quarter of 14th century.
Natanson 1951: English, 1327-1358.
Gaborit-Chopin 1978: English (Exeter), before 1369.
London 1987: English (Exeter), c. 1330-1340.
Detroit 1997: English (Exeter), 1340s-1350s.
Robinson 2008: English, 1330-1340.
Museum's opinion 2011: English (possibly Exeter), 1330-1340.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of three hinges on either side.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
Coat of arms faded.

Comments
A second ivory triptych in the British Museum (1926, 0712.1) and two leaves divided between the British Museum (1861, 0416.2) and the Musée du Louvre (OA 105) are also carved with the same coat of arms.

Provenance
Commissioned by John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter (1327-1369): coats of arms in spandrels. Collection of Louis Fidel Debruge-Duménil (b. 1788; d. 1838): sold, Paris, January-March 1849, lot 164. Juste Collection. Collection of Prince Petr Soltykoff: sold, Paris, Drouot, 8-10, 15-17, 22-24, 29 April and 1 May 1861, lot 238 to dealer John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880) for the British Museum.

Bibliography
J. Labarte, Description des objets d'art qui composent la collection Debruge-Duménil (Paris, 1847), no. 164, pp. 458-459.
A. W. Franks, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd ser., 1 (18 April 1861), pp. 376-377.
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum, (London, 1909), no. 245, pl. LIV.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 118, 133, 136, 149, 161, 324; II, no. 209A; III, pl. L.
O. M. Dalton, 'A Fourteenth-Century English Ivory Triptych', in Burlington Magazine, 68 (1926), pp. 74-83.
M. Longhurst, English Ivories (London, 1926), no. LV, pp. 43, 102.
F. Rose-Troup, 'Bishop Grandisson: Student and Art Lover', in Transactions of the Devonshire Association 61 (1928), pp. 239-275.
A. Gardner, English Medieval Sculpture (Cambridge 1951).
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 39, fig. 58.
L'Europe gothique, XIIe-XIVe siècle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1968, no. 363.
R. H. Randall, 'A Fourteenth-Century Altar Frontal', in Apollo, 100, no. 153 (November 1974), pp. 368-371.
D. A. Porter, Ivory Carvings in Later Medieval England 1200-1400 (unpublished PhD thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1974), no. 50.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. 247.
P. Williamson, An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carving (London, 1982), p. 18.
Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, ed. by Jonathan J. G. Alexander and Paul Binski, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London, 1987, no. 593 (N. Stratford).
N. Stratford, 'Bishop Grandisson and the Visual Arts', in Exeter Cathedral: A Celebration, ed. by M. Swanton (Exeter, 1991), pp. 144-155.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 38, pp. 188-189.
J. Robinson, Masterpieces of Medieval Art (London, 2008), no. 106.

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