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Opening Virgin triptych (Vierge ouvrante) (Front, closed)

Opening Virgin triptych (Vierge ouvrante) (Front, closed)
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Front, open

Subject
Religious.

Repository Institution
www.mba-lyon.fr

To purchase an image
www.mba-lyon.fr


Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts

L 364

Ivory;metal (hinges)

Height: 400mm

Closed
Seated Virgin holding Christ enclosed in a mandorla; Christ making a blessing gesture; Christ holding an orb or fruit.
Open
Wing, left
Register 1: angel.
Register 2: Christ before Pilate.
Register 3: Carrying of the Cross.
Register 4: Flagellation. Lower right corner: saint Mark writing, with his symbol, the lion.
Centre panel
Register 1: Christ in glory.
Register 2: angels; quatrefoil enclosing the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei); Hand of God; Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; figure of the Church (Ecclesia); figure of the Synagogue (Synagoga).
Register 3: Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body); pelican piercing her chest to feed her young with her own blood. Lower corners: saint Matthew writing, with his symbol, the angel; saint John writing, with his symbol, the eagle.
Wing, right
Register 1: angel.
Register 2: Christ standing on the tomb and angel (Resurrection?); Hand of God.
Register 3: Three Holy Women at the Tomb, with angel seated on the tomb and two soldiers, one asleep.
Register 4: Noli me Tangere (Christ appearing to saint Mary Magdalene).
Lower left corner: saint Luke writing, with his symbol, the calf. Symbols of the Evangelists.
Base, front: Nativity.
Base, left: Annunciation.
Base, right: Joseph.

Holbert 1997-1998: early 19th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: 2nd half of the 18th century or early 19th century


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Back of the wings carved.

Comments
This opening Virgin belongs to a group of four: K. Holbert argues that the ones in Lyon, Rouen and Paris (Louvre) are copied after the Boubon Virgin (Baltimore), which she considers the only original piece (Holbert 1997-1998).

Provenance
Collection of Jacques-Amédée Lambert, Lyon (began to collect c. 1815): his bequest to the Museum in 1850.

Bibliography
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1743.
On Jacques-Amédée Lambert, see: J.-F. Garmier, 'Le Goût du Moyen Âge chez les collectionneurs lyonnais du XIXe siècle', in Revue de l'Art 47 (1980), p. 57 (where he is erroneously called Jacques-Antoine).
K. Holbert, 'The Vindication of a Controversial Early Thirteenth-Century Vierge ouvrante in the Walters Art Gallery', in Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 55-56 (1997-1998), pp. 101-121, figs 9-10.


Image

© Musée des Beaux Arts, Lyon.

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