Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Adam rising from a tomb and collecting Christ's blood in a chalice at the foot of the cross; angel holding the sun and the moon.
Pinnacles. Medallions containing quatrefoils enclosing protruding cones in the spandrels. Pointed trefoil in the gable. Border of dentils.
Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, end of 1st third 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, c. 1325-1375.
Attribution
Unknown
Hinges
Traces of three missing hinges on the left side and two on the right side.
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: green (background).
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Modern ink inscriptions: 'W. M' (for William Maskell) and '66'.
Object Condition
Lower half broken and glued back into place.
Two holes in the upper part of the panel.
Missing: chalice originally held by Adam; moon originally held by the angel.
Provenance
Collection of William Maskell (b. 1814, d. 1890)(no. 66); bought from him by the British Museum in 1856.
Bibliography
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 273, pl. LX.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 201, 205; II, no. 421.
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. 580-2, in relation to no. 171.
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