Bone with intarsia ornament (frame);fabric (intarsia strips were attached to fabric before gluing to the panel);ivory;horn (background);wood ('alla certosina' marquetry along the frame)
Martyrdom of saint Sebastian; tree.
Longhurst 1929: Italy (North), end of the 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Northern Italian (Mantua or Venice), c. 1470-85.
Attribution
Circle of Andrea Mantegna (b. 1431, d. 1506), Mantua (according to Williamson and Davies 2014)
Reverse
Hidden by the frame. Pencil inscription: '95'. (from the 1862 exhibition).
Object Condition
The ivory is in two pieces.
Missing: four arrows piercing the saint's body (probably made of metal); top of the tree between the saint's legs.
Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London (by 1862): purchased from him by the Museum in 1865.
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. 95.
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), p. 49.
J. O. Westwood, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 903 (`73. 352).
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 102, pl. LXXXII.
S. Ferino-Pagden, Hochzeit Gonzaga. Die Brauttruhen der Paola Gonzaga und Andrea Mantegna (Milan, 2001), p. 39, note 47.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 183.
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