Gothic Ivories Project | Triptych with gables, 3 registers, with arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front, detail)

Wing, left
Register 1: Souls of the blessed received in heaven by an angel; angel blowing trumpet; bishop.
Register 2: standing figure of Synagogue (Synagoga); standing Virgin (part of the Crucifixion on centre panel).
Register 3: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Register 1: Christ in Glory (Last Judgement); Angels holding Instruments of the Passion (cross; nails; spear); Virgin Mary and saint John the Evangelist kneeling.
Register 2: Crucifixion with thieves, the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Longinus shielding his eyes; Longinus piercing Christ's side; Stephaton giving Christ vinegar.
Register 3: Seated Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse) with kneeling bishop in donor position, with mitre and crozier; two standing angels swinging censers.
Wing, right
Register 1: angel blowing trumpet; souls of the damned thrown into the Mouth of Hell; demons.
Register 2: saint John the Evangelist (part of the Crucifixion on centre panel); standing figure of the Church (Ecclesia).
Register 3: Presentation in the Temple with Joseph holding a candlestick.
Tracery. Pinnacles. Rounded trefoils. Rose windows.

Griggs 1904-1907: France, late 13th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, end of the 13th century.
Longhurst 1929: French, end of the 13th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France (possibly Picardy), c. 1250-60.

Attribution
Soissons group (Atelier du Diptyque de Soissons) (Koechlin 1924)

Hinges
Two sets of modern hinges on either side.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Three dowel holes (filled with ivory) and some crosshatching on the underside.

Object Condition
Some pinnacles have been restored.
Large diagonal crack down the right wing.
Missing: part of the background behind saint John the Evangelist on the 2nd register of the right wing (repaired). The rear part of the central gable is similarly patched; further repairs around the hinges.
More small ivory repairs whose purpose is unclear can be seen on the sides when the triptych is closed.

Provenance
Collection of Prince Petr Soltykoff (b. c. 1801, d. 1889), Paris: sale, Drouot, Paris, 8 April 1861, lot 236; collection of Frédéric Spitzer; collection of George H. Morland, London (by 1862): his sale, Christie's, London, 8 May 1866, lot 207; bought by the Durlacher Brothers, London; sold to the Museum by John Webb, London in 1866.

Bibliography
Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, and more recent periods on loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862..., revised edition, exhibition catalogue (London, 1863), no. 176.
J. Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels au Moyen Âge et à l'époque de la Renaissance, 4 vols (Paris, 1864-1866), Album, I, pl. XX.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 69 (pl).
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXXI.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIII et XIVe siècles. I. L'atelier du diptyque du trésor de Soissons', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 34 (1905), pp. 362-379 (p. 368).
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), p. 160, pl. XXI.
A. Michel, L'histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, 8 vols, 17 parts (Paris, 1905-1929), II, p. 470.
H. Kehrer, Die heiligen drei Könige in Literatur und Kunst (Leipzig, 1908-1909), II, pp. 161ff.
O. Pelka, Elfenbein (Berlin, 1920), p. 179 (with ill.).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 85, 184; II, no. 43; III, pl. XVII.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 11, pl. VI.
C. R. Morey, Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del Museo Vaticano (Vatican City, 1936), pp. 27-28, fig. 21, no. vii.
C. R. Morey, 'Italian Gothic Ivories', in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, Mss., 1939), I, pp. 183, 186, fig. 4.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), pp. 90-91.
P. Toesca Il Trecento: Storia dell'arte Italiana (Turin, 1951), II, p. 924, n. 167.
J. Gardner, 'The Ivories in the Gambier-Parry Collection', in Burlington Magazine, CIX (March 1967), p. 140.
P. Verdier, 'Le Triptyque d'ivoire à volets peints au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon', in Bulletin des Musées et Monuments Lyonnais, vol. VII, no. 2, 1982, p. 20.
C. T. Little, 'The Art of Ivory in the Time of Philippe le Bel: Innovation and Constancy', in 1300, l'Art au temps de Philippe le Bel: actes du colloque international, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 24 et 25 juin 1998 (Paris, 2001), pp. 75-88 (pp. 81-83).
C. E. Brennan, Prince Petr Soltykoff: an Important Nineteenth-Century Collector of Medieval Art (New York: The Bard Graduate Center [unpublished M.A. thesis], 2003), no. 236.
S. M. Guérin, 'Tears of Compunction': French Gothic Ivories in Devotional Practice (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Toronto, 2009), pp. 124, 129-130, 139-144, 146 n. 63, 261, 355-356.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), pp. 50-52, fig. 29, in relation to no. 4.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 51.

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