Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 3 registers, 4 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Mount, detail, wing, left)

Wing, left
Register 1: Entry into Jerusalem; apostles; female figure kneeling in donor position (?).
Register 2: Last Supper with saint John the Evangelist leaning on Christ's breast; Christ feeding Judas across the table; Judas reaching out for a fish.
Register 3: Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas); Christ restores Malchus' ear, cut by saint Peter; soldier in armour; sword; falchion; lantern.
Wing, right
Register 1: Christ washing the feet of the apostles.
Register 2: Agony in the Garden (Christ at Gethsemane); apostles asleep; trees.
Register 3: Death of Judas (Judas hanging); Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Longinus with spear kneeling in prayer; Stephaton giving Christ vinegar; Stephaton holding a bucket.
Pointed trefoils.
Mounts: saints including saint Francis holding a cross; foliated decoration; salamanders.

Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century
Koechlin 1924: France, 3rd quarter of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), c. 1350-1375.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Pencil inscription onthe back of the right wing: '2.'

Object Condition
Numerous holes plugged with ivory.
Longinus' spear is carved from a separate piece of ivory.

Comments
Later silver mounts, probably 16th century decorated with two saints, including saint Francis (left wing), foliated decoration and salamanders.

Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, by 1862: purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.

Bibliography
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. 74.
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. 7.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 120-21.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXXII.
A. Michel, L'histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, 8 vols, 17 parts (Paris, 1905-1929), I, p. 485.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), p. 167.
R. Koechlin, 'Les Ivoires gothiques', in A. Michael, Histoire de l'art depuis le premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, II/I, (Paris, 1906), pp.485.
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), pp. 100-01 (in relation to no. 284).
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ivoires gothiques français connus antérieurement au XIXe siècle', in Revue de l'Art Chrétien, 1911, XLI, pp. 281-292, pp. 387-402.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 286; II, no. 796.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), pp. 22-23, pl. XX.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), pp. 25, 35, pl. 50.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by P. Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, p. 178, fig. 31-33b.
L. Ward, ‘Scenes from the Passion of Christ’, Art on View. National Gallery of Australia, Vol. 42 (2005), pp. 42-43.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 101.

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