Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 4 registers, with quatrefoils and arches (quatre-feuilles) (Front)

In quatrefoils, Passion:
Wing, left
Register 1: Raising of Lazarus. Entry into Jerusalem.
Register 2: Last Supper with saint John the Evangelist leaning on Christ's breast; Christ feeding an Judas across the table. Agony in the Garden (Christ at Gethsemane).
Register 3: Flagellation. Carrying of the Cross with the Virgin helping Christ.
Register 4: Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body); Virgin anointing Christ's body. Resurrection; two angels standing on the tomb.
Wing, right
Register 1: Judas receives the reward. Christ washing the feet of the apostles.
Register 2: Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas); Christ restores Malchus' ear, cut by saint Peter. Death of Judas (Judas hanging). Mocking of Christ; buffeting of Christ; head of Christ covered by a cloth.
Register 3: Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist. Deposition with the Virgin holding Christ's arm; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; Nicodemus with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
Register 4: Noli me Tangere (Christ appearing to saint Mary Magdalene). Harrowing of Hell with Adam and Eve coming out of the mouth of Hell; souls burning in Hell; demons.
Under trilobed arches, life of the Virgin:
Wing, left
Register 1: Assumption (Virgin borne to Heaven by angels).
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; maid holding a candlestick and a basket of doves brought as offerings.
Register 3: Adoring Magi (part of an Adoration of the Magi).
Register 4: Annunciation; dove of the Holy Spirit.
Wing, right
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin.
Register 2: Simeon (part of a Presentation in the Temple scene).
Register 3: Adoration of the Magi with Joseph.
Register 4: Visitation.

Koechlin 1924: France, 3rd quarter of the 14th century.
Naples 1981: Paris, c. 1370.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris, c. 1360-1380.

Attribution
Atelier of the Master of the Great Passion Diptychs (Gaborit-Chopin)

Hinges
Two modern hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy (very light, in the spandrels between the quatrefoils. See report by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 2002).

Object Condition
Ivory cracked.
Missing: piece of the column in the Flagellation.

Provenance
Collection of Justin Bousquet, Rodez. Acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 1899.

Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 155, 295; II, no. 819; III, pl. CXLII.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), p. 105.
L'Art européen vers 1400, exhibition catalogue, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches museum, 1962, no. 354.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. and fig. 254, pp. 165-166, 168.
Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie. Smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania, ed. by P. Giusti, P. Leone de Castris, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Museo Duca di Martina, 1981, pp. 112-113.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 160.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), no. 309, 312 (cited).
E. Gross, Religious Relief Ivory Carving During the Regency and the Reign of Charles V of France (1356-1380), (Ann Arbor, 1986), pp. 224-227.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les ivoires gothiques français', in Louvre. Trésors du Moyen Âge. Dossier de l'art, no. 16, Dec. 1993-Jan. 1994, p. 42, fig. 12.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 30, pp. 170-173.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 201.
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. 579, in relation to no. 170.

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