Gothic Ivories Project | Polyptych (tabernacle) (Front)

Height: 282mm (central part); 251mm (inner wings); 262mm (outer wings)
Width: 235mm (overall); 82mm (central part); 38mm (inner wings); 41mm (outer wings)
Depth: 50mm (central part); 8mm (inner and outer wings)

Wings, left
Register 1: Annunciation; vase of lilies. Visitation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child; Christ bare-chested; Christ holding a fruit in his left hand.
Wings, right
Register 1: Nativity; Joseph holding Christ Child.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple.

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

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two hinges on either side (modern).

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy (two layers, oldest is red, blue, and perhaps orange and gilding. See unpublished report by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 1996).

Object Condition
Ivory cracked. The statuette of the Virgin and her baldachin are cut from a single piece of ivory.
Missing: tympanum and pinnacle of the baldachin, and the base.
Columns remade.

Provenance
Louis-Charles Timbal collection, Paris (no. 48); acquired from him by the Musée du Louvre in 1882.

Bibliography
Musées nationaux. Catalogue de la collection Timbal (Paris, 1882), no. 48
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 66, with engraving.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, II, L'atelier des tabernacles de la Vierge', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Dec. 1905, pp. 463-464.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 126, 128, 129; II, no. 156, III, pl. XL.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), pp. 94-95.
Les Fastes du Gothique. Le siècle de Charles V, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand-Palais, 1981-1982, no. 141, fig.
R. Koekkoek, Gotische ivoren in het Catharijneconvent (Utrecht, 1987), fig. 10a.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les ivoires gothiques français', in Louvre. Trésors du Moyen Âge. Dossier de l'art, no. 16, Dec. 1993-Jan. 1994, fig. 9.
B. Guineau, 'Études des couleurs dans la polychromie des ivoires médiévaux', in Bulletin de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France, 1996, pp. 188-210.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'The Polychrome Decoration of Gothic Ivories', in Images in ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, exhibition catalogue, Detroit and Baltimore, 1997, p. 55, fig. IV-8.
A. Cascio and J. Levy, 'Ivoires gothiques: polychromie originale et repeints', in 12th Triennal Meeting Lyon. 29 Aug.-3 Sept. 1999 (Comité de l'ICOM pour la conservation), fig. 7.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 143.
J. Santrot and D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Le Don Seligman au musée Dobrée: un ivoire parisien du XIVe siècle', in La Revue des musées de France. Revue du Louvre (January 2011), pp. 43-55 (p. 51, fig. 15).
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 56, in relation to no. 5.

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