Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled diptych, 1 register, 1 ogee arch across, bands of rosettes (décor de roses); also known as the Salting Diptych (Front)

Wing, left
Standing Virgin and Child.
Wing, right
Standing Christ holding an open book; blessing gesture.
Inscription on the book held by Christ: 'Ego su[m] D[omi]n[u]s D[eu]s tuus I[esu]s xp(istu]s q[ui] creavi redemi et salvabo te' (I am the Lord thy God, Jesus Christ, who created, redeemed and will save you).

Westwood 1876: France, 13th century.
Molinier 1890: England, early 15th century.
Longhurst 1929: England, 1st half of the 14th century.
Natanson 1951: England, c. 1320-1340.
von Philippowich 1961: England, c. 1330.
Gaborit-Chopin 1978: England, 1st half of the 14th century.
Williamson 1986: England (Westminster?), early 14th century.
London 1987: England (Yorkshire), c. 1330-1340.
Williamson and Davies 2014: English (probably Westminster), c. 1310-20.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges (originally three hinges, the position of which are indicated by later ivory insertions and the remains of pinholes along the inner edge of each leaf; straw hinges).

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy (not original but follows the original scheme): gold (hair, beard, along the hems, and small rosettes of the frame), three-dot pattern on Christ's robe, red (inside Christ's robe), blue.

Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Label with inscription 'Collection Spitzer 1893.'

Object Condition
On the underside of the right leaf, label with inscription '1158' in red numerals (Salting Bequest).

Provenance
Possibly in the collection of Sir Joseph Bank, Soho Square, by 1814; collection of Francis Douce (b. 1757, d. 1834), London, acquired in 1815 from a man named Smith; collection of Sir Samuel Meyrick, Goodrich Court, Herefordshire, by 1836; collection of Frédéric Spitzer, Paris, by 1890: his sale, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 145; collection of George Salting, London (from 1893 to 1910): bequeathed to the Museum in 1910 (no. 1158).

Bibliography
S. R. Meyrick, 'The Doucean Museum', in Gentlemen's Magazine (April 1836), p. 386, no. 28.
Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, collected at Manchester in 1857, exhibition catalogue, 1857.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. xc (ill.); appendix, p. 179, n. 17.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), p. 258, nos. 729-730, pl. XXI.
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 110 (E. Molinier).
E. Molinier, Histoire générale des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie (Paris, 1896), I: Les Ivoires, p. 200, ill.
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), p. 255.
'Salting Bequest (A. 70 to A. 1029-1910)/Murray Bequest (A. 1030 to A. 1096-1910)', in List of Works of Art Acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum (Department of Architecture and Sculpture) (London, 1910), p. 89.
E. S. Prior, A. Gardner, Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture in England (Cambridge, 1912), fig. 415, p. 363-64, fig. 415.
R. Koechlin, 'Les Diptyques à décor de roses', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1918), p. 244.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 110, 149, 161; III, pl. XXXIII.
M. Longhurst, English Ivories (London, 1926), no. LVII, pp. 44, 103-4, pl. 9.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 6, pl. I.
Exhibition of English Mediaeval Art, exhibition catalogue, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1930, no. 116.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 28, 38, fig. 57.
L. Stone, Sculpture in Britain. The Middle Ages, Pelican History of Art (Harmondsworth, 1955), pp. 148-149. pl. 104.
E. von Philippowich, Elfenbein (Brunswick, 1961), p. 91, fig. 71.
Opus Anglicanum. English Medieval Embroidery, exhibition catalogue, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1963, no.168.
L'Europe gothique, XIIe-XIVe siècle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1968, no. 357.
D. A. Porter, Ivory Carvings in Later Medieval England 1200-1400 (unpublished PhD thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1974), pp. 98-102, no. 168.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), pp. 159, 210, pl. 246.
J. Bony, The English Decorated Style. Gothic Architecture Transformed, 1250-1350 (Oxford, 1979), p. 22, pl. 125.
P. Williamson, An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carvings (London, 1982), pp. 18, 42, pl. 25.
The Medieval Treasury. The Art of the Middle Ages in the Victoria and Albert Museum, ed. by P. Williamson (London, 1986), pp. 200-01.
Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, ed. by J. J. G. Alexander and Paul Binski, exhibition catalogue, London, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1987, no. 520 (N. Stratford).
O. Pächt, 'Der Salvator Mundi des Turiner Stundenbuches', in Florilegium in honorem Carl Nordenfalk octogenarii contextum (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 181-190.
W. D. Wixom, 'A Late Thirteenth-Century English Ivory Virgin', in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 50, no. 3 (1987), pp. 355-357, fig. 11.
European Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, ed. by P. Williamson (London, 1996), p. 57.
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. 37.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 79.

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