In a diamond shape, God the Father with papal tiara, making a blessing gesture, holding the orb and cross in his left hand; throne decorated with crosshatching and dog heads; brooch; angel supporting a rainbow; four Symbols of the Evangelists with scrolls in the spandrels (eagle of saint John; angel of saint Matthew; lion of saint Mark; calf of saint Luke).
Longhurst 1929: France (or Flanders?), 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France (Paris), early 15th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: red bole for gold (cross, stole, orb, tiara, outer border), blue (moulding of lozenge).
Reverse
Flat, with some scoring.
Object Condition
Cracked: vertical break (pieces glued into place).
A small portion of the border at the top has been replaced.
Comments
Longhurst (1929) and the Victoria and Albert online catalogue (accessed 2011) suggest that this ivory may have originally been designed as a book cover.
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. 90.
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. 10.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 104.
The South Kensington Museum: Etchings of Works of Art in the Museum (1882), pl. 22.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), pp. 39-40, pl. XLI.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 180.
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