Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 3 registers, 1 arch across (Wing, right)

Wing, left
Register 1: Flagellation; Carrying of the Cross.
Register 2: Temptation of Judas or Judas and the High Priest (?); Judas receiving the reward; soldiers (part of Betrayal scene on right wing).
Register 3: Deposition with the Virgin holding Christ's hand; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
Wing, right
Register 1: Crucifixion with thieves; Virgin and saint John the Evangelist.
Register 2: Death of Judas (Judas hanging); Saint Peter cuts Malchus' ear; Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas).
Register 3: Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body); Noli me Tangere (Christ appearing to saint Mary Magdalene).

Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, 1st third of 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, early 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two modern hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: green on tree, red on features, brown and black. Traces of gilding in the hair.

Reverse
Smooth and flat.

Comments
Comparable diptych in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, originally from the Basilewsky Collection, no. 119 (Dalton 1909).

Provenance
Collection of William Maskell (b. 1814, d. 1890); British Museum, by purchase, 1856.

Bibliography
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no.282, pl. LXII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 142; II, no. 249.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 555, in relation to no. 158.

All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.