Gothic Ivories Project | Openwork panel (plaque ajourée, fragment of a diptych), 3 registers (colonnettes) (Front)

Left
Register 1: Virgin in clouds borne to Heaven by angels (bodily Assumption).
Register 2: Annunciation to the Shepherds; musician shepherd holding bagpipes; sheep.
Register 3: Annunciation.
Centre
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin; angels blowing trumpets.
Register 2: Death of the Virgin (Dormition); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin; Christ closing the Virgin's lips; apostles.
Register 3: Adoration of the Magi with Joseph; Virgin lying on a bed.
Right
Register 1: Christ holding the soul of the Virgin; angel.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Virgin holding Christ; hanging lamp; chalice.
Register 3: Adoring Magi (part of the scene on the left).
Architectural framework. Flamboyant tracery. Figures in niches. Pinnacles.

Molinier 1890: Italy, 15th century.
Molinier 1904: Italy, 15th century.
Koechlin 1924: England or France, mid 15th century.
Egbert 1929: Germany or North Italy with strong German influence.
Natanson 1951: England, 15th century.
Museum's opinion 2012: Northern France or Southern Netherlands, 15th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Wooden backing.
Labels on the backing. Blue and white label with handwritten inscription: 'o.146'. Torn white label with printed inscription: '101...'. Red and white EXP[ositi]on RETROSPECTIVE 1900 label with handwritten inscription: 'Oppenheim Cologne'. Blue and white label with handwritten inscription '80 Dyptique ivoire o.18'.

Object Condition
Restoration to upper right corner.

Comments
Related to 17.190.265.

Provenance
Collection of Frédéric Spitzer (b. 1815, d. 1890), Paris: his sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 147-148. Collection of Baron Albert Oppenheim, Cologne: his sale, 1906. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan (d. 1913), London and New York; estate of J. Pierpont Morgan (1913-1917); gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.

Bibliography
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 112 (E. Molinier).
A. Schnütgen, 'Zwei durchbrochene Elfenbeintafeln aus dem Amfang des XV. Jahrhunderts', in Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst (1893), cols. 97-98, pl. IV.
Exposition rétrospective de l'art français des origines à 1800, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Petit Palais, 1900.
E. Molinier, Collection du Baron Albert Oppenheim, tableaux et objets d'art (Paris, 1904), p. 35, no. 80, pl. LVII (ill.).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 324-328, 484; II, no. 875; III, pl. CLVII.
M. Longhurst, English Ivories (London, 1926), pl. 49 and 50, nos. LXXII, LXXIII.
Pierpont Morgan Wing: a handbook by Joseph Breck and Meyric Rogers (1929), p. 117, figs. 66, 67.
D. D. Egbert, 'North Italian Gothic Ivories in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library', in Art Studies 7 (1929), pp. 196, 198-201, fig. 56.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 39, fig. 63.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, pp. 594-5, in relation to no. 179.

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