Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled polyptych (tabernacle) (Front)

Height: 140mm
Width: 140mm (open); 58mm (closed)
Depth: 25mm (open); 31mm (closed)

Wings, left
Register 1: Visitation. Annunciation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child; Virgin holding a stem of flowers in her right hand; Christ seated on the Virgin's left arm; Christ holding a fruit in his left hand.
Wings, right
Register 1: Nativity; Virgin holding the swaddled child.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Virgin holding Christ.

Koechlin 1924: late 1st half of the 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two ring hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: green (spandrels; lining of the Virgin's cloak).

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Label on the back of the centre panel: '39...'.

Object Condition
Missing: upper part of the central gable; colonnettes of the central niche.
Broken: floor below the Virgin.

Provenance
M. Lacarde, Paris. Collection of Georges Hoentschel (b. 1855, d. 1915), Paris. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan (d. 1913), London and New York; estate of J. Pierpont Morgan (1913-1917); gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.

Bibliography
Exposition d'art ancien. Catalogue officiel, exhibition catalogue, Tourcoing, Palais des beaux-arts, 1906, no. 228.
A. Pératé, Collections Georges Hoentschel. Ivoires, orfèvrerie religieuse, pierres (Paris, 1911), no. 36, pl. XXIX and note.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 126; II, no. 139.
C. R. Morey, 'Italian Gothic Ivories', in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, Mss., 1939), I, p. 193, no. XVII.

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