Gothic Ivories Project | Openwork diptych with roundels (plaques ajourées) (Front)

Wing, left
Crucifixion; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women and saint John the Evangelist; onlookers; two angels collecting the blood of Christ in chalices; skull of Adam at the foot of the cross; sun and moon. In the spandrels (clockwise): Flagellation; whip. Angels praying with hands crossed on their chest. Female kneeling figure in donor position; prie-Dieu; open book. Tonsured male figure kneeling in donor position.
Wing, right
Entombment with the Virgin kissing Christ's hand; saint John the Evangelist; one of the Holy Women holding a jar (possibly saint Mary Magdalene); architecture.
In the spandrels (clockwise): angels praying with hands crossed on their chest; angels crying; unidentified coats of arms, each with a cross.
Foliated border with vine scrolls and roses.

Düsseldorf 1902: Flemish, 14th century.
Molinier 1904: late 14th or early 15th century, Savoy or Piedmont with French influence.
Egbert 1929: North Italian (probably Milanese).
Museum's opinion 2011: North French or Netherlandish, c. 1400-1450.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Modern hinge and frame.

Reverse
Unable to view back of ivory due to mount. Back of the silver frame decorated with crosses of two different types echoing the coats of arms carved in ivory. The edges of the metal frame are decorated with bands of pierced quatrefoils.

Object Condition
Cracked in several places. Made of numerous pieces of ivory assembled like a jigsaw and held together by the frame.

Comments
17.190.243, also in the Metropolitan Museum collection is a carving in a similar openwork style.

Provenance
Collection of Baron Albert Oppenheim, Cologne: 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
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue illustré Officiel de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), possibly no. 128, 129 or 130.
Kunsthistorische Ausstellung zu Düsseldorf, exhibition catalogue, Düsseldorf, 1902, no. 1215, fig. 80.
E. Molinier, Collection du Baron Albert Oppenheim, tableaux et objets d'art (Paris, 1904), p. 34, no. 78, pl. LVI.
D. D. Egbert, 'North Italian Gothic Ivories in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library', in Art Studies 7 (1929), p. 202, n. 4.
The Pierpont Morgan wing: a handbook by Joseph Breck and Meyric Rogers (New York, 1929), 2nd ed., pp. 117-118.
C. T. Little , ‘The Art of Gothic Ivories: Studies at the Crossroads,’ in The Sculpture Journal 23.1 (2014), pp. 13-29, fig. 14-15 and fig. 17.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 112.

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