Seated Virgin and Child; Christ seating on the Virgin's right knee; bare-chested Christ; Christ reaching for a bird caught in the end of the Virgin's mantle; bench decorated with tracery and arches; cushion; rings.
Westwood 1876: France, 15th century.
Griggs 1904-1907: England (?), 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: possibly England, late 14th or early 15th century.
Longhurst 1929: England, late 14th or early 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France (Paris) or England (Westminster?), c. 1360-80.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Two iron pins at the back of the throne.
Object Condition
Missing: right arm of Christ, index finger and thumb of the Virgin's left hand; two fingers and thumb of the Virgin's right hand; parts of the seat, crown (holes in the Virgin's head); the Virgin's feet (recarved area?).
Abrasion on the Virgin's forehead above her right eye.
Front surface of the sculpture is worn, especially Christ's left foot.
Comments
Underside: two dowel holes plugged with wood.
Provenance
Collection of Bram Hertz, diamond merchant, dealer and collector, London: sale, Phillips, London, 25 March 1857, lot 238; bought by John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London; purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.
Bibliography
M.D. Wyatt and E. Oldfield, Notices of Sculpture in Ivory, Consisting of a Lecture on the History, Methods, and Chief Productions of the Art, Delivered at the First Annual General Meeting of the Arundel Society, on the 29th June, 1855, and a Catalogue of Specimens of Ancient Ivory-Carvings in Various Collections (London, 1856), pp. 15, 51.
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.
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. 12.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), no. 202-1867, p. 77.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 739 ('8.41).
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXII.
R. Koechlin, Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, ed. by A. Michel, II (Paris, 1906), p. 502.
E. S. Prior, A. Gardner, Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture in England (Cambridge, 1912), p. 364, fig. 416.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 251; II, no. 708bis; III, pl. CXV.
M. Longhurst, English Ivories (London, 1926), no. LXIV, pp. 50, 107, pl. 10.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 7-8, pl. III.
F. P. Brown, London Sculpture (London, 1934), p. 34.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), pp. 102-3.
Europäische Kunst um 1400. Achte Ausstellung unter den Auspizien des Europarates, ed. by Vinzenz Oberhammer et. al., exhibition catalogue, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1962, no. 348, pl. 47 (H. Fillitz).
D. A. Porter, Ivory Carvings in Later Medieval England 1200-1400 (unpublished PhD thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1974), no. 54.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 15.
M. Tomasi, 'Note su due avori gotici del Museo Civico d'Arte Antica', in Palazzo Madama. Studi e notizie, forthcoming.
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