Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled triptych, 2 registers, with base (tabernacle) (Front (closed))

Wing, left
Register 1: Annunciation; vase of lilies.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child; angel crowning the Virgin.
Wing, right
Register 1: Nativity; Virgin holding the swaddled child.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, 2nd half of 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: Paris, c. 1340.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges on either side (modern).

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of later gilding and polychromy on the back of the wings and on the base: painted foliated decoration in red and gold.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Back of the wings painted with arch and foliated decoration. Faded inscription 'W.M.' (for William Maskell) on the back of the centre panel.

Object Condition
Missing: crockets from central gable.

Comments
The base is later.

Provenance
Collection of William Maskell (b. 1814, d. 1890): 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. 266, pl. LVIII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 124; II, no. 129.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 56, in relation to no. 5.

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