Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: Christ disrobed; Flagellation; Carrying of the Cross with the Virgin helping Christ.
Register 2: Judas receives the reward; hanging purse; Betrayal (Taking of Christ); Christ restores Malchus' ear, cut by saint Peter; Christ before Pilate.
Wing, right
Register 1: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist (Nailing to the Cross); Longinus kneeling in prayer; missing scene (probably Deposition); Stephaton holding a bucket; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
Register 2: Pilate washing his hands; Death of Judas (Judas hanging); Buffeting of Christ; head of Christ covered by a cloth.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), about 1330-50.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Three hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (hair, sword of saint Peter, etc.), red (lining of some garments) and blue (background; trefoils; lining of some garments).

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
Missing: spear and sponge held by Stephaton; part of the whip on the left in the Flagellation scene; the Deposition scene. Crosshatched lines might however indicate that this scene was originally made of separate elements glued onto the surface.
Damage on the sword of saint Peter in the Arrest of Christ.

Provenance
Collection of Jules Soulages, Toulouse, by 1856; purchased from him by a subscription committee in 1856; acquired by the Museum in 1859.

Bibliography
J. Webb, Report on a Collection of Ornamental Art at Toulouse (London, 1856), p. 4, no. 11.
J. C. Robinson, Catalogue of the Soulages Collection; Being a descriptive inventory of a collection of works of decorative art, formerly in the possession of M. Jules Soulages of Tolouse, now, by permission of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade, exhibited to the Public at the Museum of Ornamental Art, Marlborough House, (London, 1856), p. 96, no. 303.
Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdon, collected at Manchester in 1857, exhibition catalogue, 1857, p. 96.
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. 32.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), pp. 23-25.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXXV.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 155, 167-68; II, no. 288; pl. LXXII.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 18, pl. XIV.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, p. 188.
R. Koekkoek, Gotische ivoren in het Catharijneconvent (Utrecht, 1987), p. 21 fig. 6.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 83.

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