Register 1: Death of the Virgin (Dormition); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin. Coronation of the Virgin; Christ crowning the Virgin; angel swing a censer.
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi. Presentation in the Temple; maid holding a candlestick and a basket of doves brought as offerings.
Register 3: Annunciation; Dove of the Holy Spirit; vase of lilies. Nativity with swaddled Christ Child in manger.
Pinnacles. Tracery.
Dalton 1909: North French or Flemish, 14th-15th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, mid 15th century.
Leeuwenberg 1969: Northern French, 18th or 19th century.
Jones 1990: 1st half of 19th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: Northern French or Flemish, 18th or 19th century.
Attribution
Master of the Bearded Men Forgeries (Leeuwenberg)
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Supporting strips of ivory glued around the back of the frame. Ink inscriptions: 'W. M' (for William Maskell) and '105'.
Object Condition
Missing: dove of the Holy Spirit in the Annunciation scene, angels swinging censers in the Coronation of the Virgin, only part of one angel left.
Part of frame broken and re-attached.
Comments
Format and iconography are based on the 13th century plaques of the Soissons group (Jones 1990).
Provenance
Collection of William Maskell (b. 1814, d. 1890) (no. 105): bought from him by the British Museum in 1856.
Bibliography
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909) no. 313, pl. LXX.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 323, 324, 517; II, no. 864.
D. D. Egbert, 'North Italian Gothic Ivories in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library', in Art Studies 7 (1929), pp. 168-207 [p. 201, fig. 62].
J. Leeuwenberg, 'Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories', in Aachener Kunstblätter, 39 (1969), pp. 111-148 (p. 142).
Fake? The Art of Deception, ed. by M. Jones, exhibition catalogue, London, British Museum, 1990, no. 191.
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