Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled polyptych, bands of rosettes (tabernacle; colonnettes; frise d'arcatures; décor de roses) (Side)

Wings, left
Register 1: Visitation. Annunciation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child; angel crowning the Virgin.
Wings, right
Register 1: Nativity; Joseph holding Christ.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: French, 1st half of the 14th century.
Natanson 1951: French, c. 1330-1340.
von Philippowich 1961: French, c. 1330.
Amsterdam 1994: France, c. 1330.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), c. 1300-20.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive gilding and polychromy in two layers, a 19th-century layer over the original layer: flesh colour (skin), red and blue (architectural details), gold (along the gables; decorated hems with pseudo-Kufic inscriptions; hair and beards; crown, etc.).

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
Missing: some of the Virgin's fingers on her right hand; object which the Virgin was holding (flower); four feet of the pedestal; crockets on the canopy (some replaced by wooden crockets at the back); corner pinnacles and centre pinnacle (indicated by holes).
Underside crosshatched.
Damages to the corners and front of the pedestal. A piece of ivory on the back of the inner left wing has been added to compensate the natural curve of the tusk (the upper part is now lost).

Comments
Although Longhurst thought that the base was later, Williamson (2014) argues that it is original, but with its front modified, probably in the 17th or 18th century, to display a relic of saint Chrysogonus wrapped in red silk fabric.

Provenance
Humann collection, Paris; Humann sale, Paris, 8-15 February 1858, lot 1; in the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London: purchased from him by the Museum in 1858.

Bibliography
'Vente publique des objets d'art et de curiosité de la collection Humann, faite à Paris le 8 février et jours suivants', in Journal des amateurs d'objets d'art et de curiosité vol. 5 (1858), p. 54.
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. 15.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 16.
A. Schnütgen,'Gothisches Elfenbein-Klappaltärchen im South-Kensington-Museum,' Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst, IX, 1896, cols 123-28.
H. Semper, 'Über eine besondere Gruppe elfenbeinerner Klappaltärchen des XIV Jahrhunderts', in Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 11 (1898), cols 114ff, 187.
A. M. Cust, The Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages (London, 1902), p. 142, fig. 31.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXX.
A. Michel, L'histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, 8 vols, 17 parts (Paris, 1905-1929), II, pp. 476, 478.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIII et XIVe siècles. II. L'atelier des tabernacles de la Vierge', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 34 (1905), pp. 453-471 (p. 464).
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), p. 166, pl. XXXIII.
R. Koechlin, 'Les Ivoires gothiques', in A. Michel, Histoire de l'art depuis le premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, II/I, (Paris, 1906), pp.476, 478.
R. Koechlin, 'Les Diptyques à décor de roses', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1918), p. 232.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 126, 128, 133, 135, 166; II, no. 154; III, pl. XXXIX.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 13; pl. VII.
C. R. Morey, 'Italian Gothic Ivories', in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, Mss., 1939), pp. 192 and 196.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 36, fig. 38.
E. von Philippowich, Elfenbein (Brunswick, 1961), p. 31, fig. 25.
H. van Os, The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300-1500, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1994, p. 31, fig. 31.
A. Cascio and J. Levy, 'Les ivoires peints. La polychromie des statuettes d'ivoire' (introd. by D. Gaborit-Chopin), in Coré, 5 (1998), pp. 17-20.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, p. 174.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), p. 377, fig.143a.
J. Cherry and J. Lowden, Medieval Ivories and Works of Art: The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 2008), p. 61.
J. Santrot and D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Le Don Seligman au musée Dobrée: un ivoire parisien du XIVe siècle', in La Revue des musées de France. Revue du Louvre (January 2011), pp. 43-55 (fig. 8, p. 47).
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 43.

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