Gothic Ivories Project | Wing, left (fragment of a diptych), 3 registers, 2 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Register 1: Annunciation of the Virgin's death by an angel (Gabriel) with a palm branch. An angel leads the Virgin to Heaven.
Register 2: Saint John receives the palm from the Virgin; servant. Two musician angels.
Register 3: Death of the Virgin (Dormition); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin. Apostles.
Roses in the spandrels.

Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Paris 1998, Gaborit-Chopin 2003, Petzel 2007 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris, c. 1300-1320.

Attribution
Style of the Master of the Death of the Virgin (Koechlin)

Hinges
Traces of three hinges on the right side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy (several layers, original includes gold, blue, red. See report by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 1985).

Reverse
Evidence of a red-wax stamp.

Object Condition
Ivory broken into several pieces and stuck back together.Palm broken in the second scene. Wrenching around the hinges.
Repair to part of the base of the middle register, to the two columns at the centre and base, to the Angel's hand in the upper-left register.

Comments
Scenes inspired by Jacques de Voragine's La Légende de la Mort de la Vierge.

Provenance
Louis-Charles Timbal collection, Paris (no. 45); acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 1882.

Bibliography
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 37.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 140; II, no. 213, III, pl. LIV.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 144.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, no. 112.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 123.
K. K. Petzel, Elfenbein Diptychon mit Passions- und Erscheinungsszenen (Cologne, 2007), p. 8, fig. 1.

© Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN) - Daniel Arnaudet.
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