Seated Virgin and Child (Virgo lactans); Christ standing in the Virgin's lap; Christ in long robe with cloak; Virgin holding a scroll in her right hand (later); Christ writing on the scroll with his right hand; brooch.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of 14th or early 15th century.
Leeuwenberg 1969: France (?), last quarter of the 18th century to 1st half of the 19th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: French (Paris), c. 1400.
Attribution
Master of the Agrafe Forgeries (Leeuwenberg 1969)
Reverse
Carved in the round. Back of the bench flat and crosshatched.
Object Condition
Missing: crown; scroll (later).
Ivory cracked. Left side of the base broken.
The figure was originally mounted on a seat (the current wooden seat is modern). Holes for fixing behind the arms and underneath the statuette.
Small holes near the right foot. Head sculpted for a gold crown (probably original), but later recut (a 19th-century crown later worn by the Virgin has been removed).
Recut: forehead, upper-left part of the face, neck, collar of the coat of the Virgin, Virgin's scroll, Christ's robe around the left hand of the Virgin and (perhaps) back of Christ. See report by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 1995.
On underside, labelled: 'A 67', 'N 99'.
Comments
The similarity between the object and a scene from Les Très Belles Heures de Jean de Berry (c. 1390; Brussels, Bibliothèque royale, ms. 11060-1) suggests that it was made by a craftsman from the circle of the duc de Berry (see Gaborit-Chopin 2003, fig. 230a).
Provenance
Collection of Baron Jean-Charles Davillier, no. 34; bequest of J.-C. Davillier to the Musée du Louvre, 1883.
Bibliography
Exposition de 1865 au Palais de l'industrie, Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l'industrie (Paris, 1866), no. 311.
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1751.
L. Courajod, E. Molinier, Donation du baron Charles Davillier. Catalogue des objets exposés au musée du Louvre (Paris, 1885), no. 34.
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 99.
R. Koechlin, Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, ed. by A. Michel, II (Paris, 1906), p. 482.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 248, 251; II, no. 706; III, pl. CXIV.
M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry. The Late XIVth Century and the Patronage of the Duke (London, 1967), p. 206, fig. 669.
J. Leeuwenberg, 'Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories', in Aachener Kunstblätter, 39 (1969), pp. 111-148 (pp. 137-138, fig. 43).
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les ivoires gothiques. A propos d'un article récent', in Bulletin monumental 128-2 (1970), pp. 127-133 (pp. 130-132, fig. 3).
Das goldene Rössl: Ein Meisterwerk der Pariser Hofkunst um 1400, exhibition catalogue, Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 1995, no. 8, fig.
C. Ferment, Les Statuettes d'ivoire en Europe du Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle (Paris, 2000), p. 169, fig. X.9.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 230.
Paris 1400. Les Arts sous Charles VI, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2004, no. 206.
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