Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled triptych, 1 register (Front)

Wing, left
Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); angel crowning the Virgin; two angels holding candlesticks.
Wing, right
Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon; hanging lamp.Angels swinging censers in the spandrels.
Pinnacles.

Dalton 1909: French, 13th-14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, start of 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, late 13th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Modern hinges and clasp.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding in the details of the figures and green polychromy in hair and drapery.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Modern ink inscription 'W. M' (for William Maskell) and '28'.

Object Condition
Missing: taper and hands of one angel, right hand of the Virgin, upper part of the pinnacles.
Crack through the centre panel.

Comments
The style of the figures are similar to that of the sculpture on the west portal at Reims (Dalton 1909)

Provenance
Collection of William Maskell, (b. 1814, d. 1890)(no. 28); British Museum, by purchase, 1856.

Bibliography
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 265, pl. LIX.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 130; II, no. 168, pl. XLII.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 56, in relation to no. 5.

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