A & A spacer courtauld institute of art
login
quick search advanced search browse temp folder

Base (?) with ogee arches (fragment), carved on four sides (Side 2)

Base (?) with ogee arches (fragment), carved on four sides (Side 2)
enlarge image zoom image

Side 2

Side, left

Side, right

Side 2

Subject
Religious. Life of Christ. Saints.

Repository Institution
www.hermitagemuseum.org

To purchase an image
www.hermitagemuseum.org


Saint Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum

Inv. F 65

Ivory

Height: 61 mm
Width: 32 mm
Depth: 20 mm

Side 1: Adoration of the Magi; angel crowning the Virgin; clouds.
Side 2: saint John the Baptist holding the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei); camel hide. Saint Catherine of Alexandria with wheel and martyr's palm. Saint Michael and the devil.
Side 3: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; titulus with inscription 'INRI'.
Side 4: Saint Anthony abbot with tau-headed staff (?). Saint Christopher carrying Christ across the river; blessing gesture. Martyrdom of saint Sebastian; saint Sebastian tied to a tree; arrows.
Angels above the arches (some of them seem to be musician angels).

Kryzhanovskaya 2014: Germany, 1st half of the 15th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy (brown).

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Missing: angels' heads, above the arches.

Comments
This piece is hollow with a smaller projecting rectangular rim at the base which must have allowed it to be fitted onto another part, possibly made of a different material. The rim is interrupted on side 2, as if to allow another section to slide in.
In its upper part, a projection with a hole on either side seems to suggest that it may have been hung at some point. A wedge-shaped piece of ivory or bone with a rosette (probably later) has been used to close what must have originally been a hole in the top side of the upper projection.
M. Kryzhanovskaya suggests it may have been a pomander or part of a rosary (Kryzhanovskaya 2014).

Provenance
Collection of Alexander Petrovich Basilewski (b. 1829, d. 1899), Paris, acquired between 1874 and 1884; transferred to the Hermitage in 1885.

Bibliography
A. Darcel, A. P. Basilewski, Collection Basilewski. Catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1874), no. 565.
N. Kondakov, Imperatorskii Ermitazh. Ukazatel' otdeleniia srednikh vekov i epokhi vozrozhdeniia [Guide to the Department of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of the Imperial Hermitage] (Saint Petersburg, 1891), no. 51, p. 157.
Zachodnioeuropejska rzezba z kosci w latach 1100-1290 ze zbiorow Panstwowego Ermitazu v Leningradzie, exhibition catalogue, Warsaw, The National Museum, 1981, no. 25.
Zapadnoevropeiskoe prikladnoe iskusstvo srednikh vekov i epokhi Vozrozhdeniia iz kollektsii A. P. Bazilevskogo, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], The State Hermitage Museum, 1986, no. 25.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (Saint Peterburg, 2014), no. 131.


Image

© The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, 2015.

All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.

spacer
spacer spacer spacer spacer
Please remember to acknowledge any use of the site in publications and lectures as: 'Gothic Ivories Project at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, www.gothicivories.courtauld.ac.uk', followed by the date you accessed the site.