Assumption of the Virgin (Virgin borne to Heaven by angels); Virgin with hands crossed on her chest; apostles with hands crossed on their chest; saint Peter holding keys; saint Paul holding a sword.
Foliated decoration; flowers.
Longhurst 1929: French or Flemish (?), 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), c. 1400-1410.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive gilding and polychromy: gold (angels, wings, robes, haloes, stars, openwork foliage, decorative patterns on some robes), blue (background, robes), green (robes), brown (beards and hair), red (angel's robe), pink (robes), yellow (lining of the Virgin's robe).
Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Comments
This relief may have been part of a reliquary or designed as a pendant.
Provenance
Formerly in the Farrer collection, almost certainly Henry Farrer, FSA (b. 1798, d. 1866), London dealer of the mid-19th century; acquired in 1855.
Bibliography
HMSO, Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition (London, 1868), p. 67.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 3.
J. Alois Kuhn, Katalog für die Ausstellung der Werke älterer Meister (Munich, [1876]), pt II: Katalog der Kunst und Kunstindustrie-Ausstellung alter und neuer deutscher Meister, no. 553.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 323 note.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 39, pl. XXXIV.
J. Rasmussen, 'Untersuchungen zum Halleschen Heiltum des Kardinals Albrecht von Brandenburg', in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 28 (1977), pp. 91-132 (p. 130 n. 409).
Die Parler und der Schöne Stil 1350-1400. Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Schnütgen-Museum in der Kunsthalle, 1978, I, p. 65 (R. Didier).
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 158 (see also no. 157 and 159).
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