Register 1: Resurrection with three soldiers asleep; two angels kneeling on the tomb. Three Holy Women at the Tomb, with angel seated on the tomb.
Register 2: saint Martin and the Beggar; unidentified saint (saint James the Lesser?) or Christ and saint James the Greater; satchel decorated with a scallop shell; book; candlestick (?).
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.
Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, c. 1325-1375.
Attribution
Unknown
Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on the left side.
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Ink inscription in an early 18th-century hand: 'found with its fellow [see Provenance] under an old hogs trough near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. Given me by my uncle, Doct. Pinkney'; traces of same wording on upper half.
Object Condition
Central hole in the upper part of the panel.
Comments
The left wing of this diptych is now in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow (Inv. 21.9; see related objects link).
Provenance
A cedar panel of the same size as the ivory is inscribed in ink on both sides in the same 18th-century hand as the lower inscription on the back of the ivory piece. On one side: 'This picture came from ye Grange near Grantham, where my Grandfather Fysher lived and my uncle Fysher, who afterwards sold it to the Marquis of Granby Fammely'. On the other side: 'Came from the ye Grange near Grantham, it was my Grandfather Fysher's Estate and was sold by my Uncle Fysher to the Marquis of Granbye's Fammely, and is now a Hunting-seat of theirs. Eliz. Colman, 1739'. According to Dalton 1909, 'The Grange near Grantham, originally a monastery of Grey Friars, was in the middle of the 17th century the residence of the family of Bury. In the latter part of the century it was in the occupation of the Fishers, and in 1722 of Francis Fisher, Esq. M.P. for Grantham. The estate was purchased by Lord William Manners, second son of John, Duke of Rutland, who died in 1772. Marquis of Granby is the courtesy title borne by the eldest sons of the Dukes of Rutland since 1703. See Turnor, Collections for the History of the Town and Soke of Grantham, London, 1806, p. 38.'Found under a hog trough near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire (see inscription on the back). Fisher family, Grange, near Grantham; by descent to Elizabeth Colman (in 1739). Collection of Doctor Pinkney. Collection of Major Rhode Hawkins (b. 1821, d. 1884). Collection of Samuel Willson: bought from him by the British Museum in 1885.
Bibliography
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 285, Pl. LXVI.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ivoires gothiques français connus antérieurement au XIXe siècle', in Revue de l'Art Chrétien 41 (1911), pp. 281-292, fig. 4.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924),I, pp. 189, 198; II, no. 379; III, pl. LXXXIII.
W. Wells, 'A Gothic Diptych Re-united', in Scottish Art Review, Vol. XI, no. 1 (1967), pp. 26-28.
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