Side 1: Crucifixion; Virgin and Holy Women; saint John the Evangelist.
Side 2: Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two angels holding candlesticks; Christ seated on left arm; Christ holding a fruit or orb in his left hand.
Angel supporting the volute. Foliated decoration: vine leaves with grapes.
Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of 2nd quarter of 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, middle of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), c. 1330-40.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (hair), red (inside the Virgin's veil), blue (lining of John's cloak). Light-green staining around the edges of the draperies of all the figures.
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London (by 1862): purchased from him by the Museum in 1865.
Bibliography
Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, and more recent periods on loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862..., revised edition, exhibition catalogue (London, 1863), no. 117.
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged according to the dates of their acquisition (London, 1868), I, p. 32.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 46, pl. XLII.
Middleton, Building News, 23 February 1894, p. 245, fig. 261.
A. M. Cust, The Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages (London, 1902), p. 131, fig. 27.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XVIII.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), pl. XLII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 271, 273-5; II, no. 765; III, pl. CXXVI.
W. W. Watts, Catalogue of Pastoral Staves in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (London, 1924), no. 21.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 34.
O. Beigbeder, Ivory (New York, 1965), p. 67, fig. 33.
The Decorated page: eight hundred years of illuminated manuscripts and books, exhibition catalogue, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, May-October 1971, no. 253.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, p. 190.
F. Scholten and G. de Werd (eds.), Een hogere werkelijkheid, Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exhibition catalogue (Amsterdam, Museum Kurhaus Kleef, 2004), p. 156.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 148.
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