Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures) (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: Crucifixion, with jet of blood striking the Virgin's chest; swooning Virgin supported by Holy Women; Saint John the Evangelist and onlookers.
Register 2: Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds.
Wing, right
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin; Christ blessing the Virgin; two angels swinging censers and holding navettes, kneeling on the sides of the bench.
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels..

Koechlin 1924: France, early 2nd third of the 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris (Atelier of the Cracow casket), c. 1320-1340.

Attribution
Atelier of the Cracow casket (Gaborit-Chopin 2003)

Hinges
Two hinges.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Labels recording the inventory number and Molinier number.

Object Condition
Ivory cracked. Right wing slightly convex.
Jet of blood broken. Hand of the kneeling Magus restored; restoration around the hinges on the right wing; chip in the same place, on the left wing.
Outer border planed (no trace of clasp to close).

Provenance
Louis-Charles Timbal collection, Paris (no. 57); acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 1882.

Bibliography
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 71.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 170, 172, 174, 175, 181, 200; II, no. 292, III, pl. LXXV.
C. R. Morey, 'A Group of Gothic Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery', in Art Bulletin, 18 (1936), p. 209.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 147.
D. A. Walsh, 'Notes on the Iconography of a Fourteenth-Century Ivory', in Porticus. The Journal of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, VII, 1984, fig. 2.
Tesoros medievales del Museo del Louvre, exhibition catalogue, Mexico, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, 1993, p. 132, fig. 53.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 159.

© Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN) - Martine Beck-Coppola.
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