Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive gilding and polychromy: blue (background; inside of saint Matthew's cloak, ), gold (inscription, hair, patterns, painted dragon, numerous highlights, stars, etc.).
Painted inscription on the volute: 'DEVS . QVI . HODIERNA DIE . VNIGENITVM . TVVR . GENTIBVS . STELLA . DVCE' (front) 'REVELASTI . CONCEDE . PROPITIVS . VT . QVI . IAM . TE . EX . FIDE . COGNO [vimus]' (back). Translation: 'O god, who on his day by the leading of a star didst manifest thine only-begotten son to the gentiles; mercifully grant that we who know thee by faith, [...may be brought to the contemplation of the beauty of thy majesty]' (this is a portion of the Collect for the Epiphany).
Painted inscription on the scroll held by the right hand side figure on the outside of the volute: 'SALOMON'.
Painted inscriptions in uncial script in the background of each Evangelist panel, providing their name: 'S. IOANES. EV.', 'S. MARCVS. EV.', 'S. MATEVS', 'S. LVCHAS. EV.'
The painted decoration on the staff has partly disappeared but an engraved 'D' is still visible, followed by four dots. Outlines of painted decoration still discernible include a dragon, a cross, birds, foliated scrolls and a crozier.

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Missing: four foliate shoots or prophets along the exterior of the volute, three ivory pegs remain.
The heads of Christ and Solomon and two foliate shoots are later replacements (late 19th century).

Provenance
The coat of arms on the case identifies the crozier as having belonged to Giovanni Benci Carrucci Aldobrandini, bishop of Gubbio (Umbria, central Italy) between 1370 and 1375. Museo Civico, Volterra, until 1880; sale: J. Sambon, 2 December 1880, lot 4; Frédéric Spitzer collection, Paris by 1890: his sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 125 (crozier) and lot 799 (case); Salting collection, London, 1893-1910; bequeathed to the museum by Salting in 1910.

Bibliography
J. Sambon, Description des Ivoires de la Ville de Volterra, sale catalogue (Florence, 1880), cat. no. 4, pp. 21-24.
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 90 (E. Molinier).
E. Molinier, Histoire générale des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie. I: Les Ivoires (Paris, 1896), pp. 202-4, pl. 14.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XX.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), pp. 202, 218.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 277, no. 774A; III, pl. CXXX.
W. W. Watts, Catalogue of Pastoral Staves in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (London, 1924), no. 28, pl. 15.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), pp. 60-61, pl. LKK.
O. von Falke, in Pantheon XVI (1935), p. 270.
P. Lesley, 'Two triptychs and a Crucifix in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican library', in Art Bulletin XVIII (1936), pp. 477-478, fig. 15.
P. B. Cott, Siculo-Arabic Ivories (Princeton, 1939), no. 179, pl. 66.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 39, fig. 61.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), p. 211.
B. Wolff-Łozínska, 'Grupa Włoskich Pastorałów z Kości Słoniowej i egzemplarz zachowany w Polsce', in Ars Auro Prior, Studia Ioanni Białostocki Sexagenario Dicata (Warsaw, 1981), pp. 143, 144, 146, fig. 8.
P. L. Menichetti, Storia di Gubbio dalle origini all'Unità d'Italia, 2 vols, (Città di Castello, 1987), pp. 75-75.
P. Williamson, 'Avori italiani e avori francesi', in Il Gotico europeo in Italia (Naples, 1994), pp. 293-298 (pp. 293-294, fig. 2).
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. 50, pp. 215-216.
D. Thurre, ‘Pastorale,’ in Enciclopedia dell’Arte Medievale, Vol. 4 (1998), p. 246.
M. Tomasi, ‘Contributi allo studio della scultura eburnean trecentesca in Italia: Venezia’, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, series 4, vol. 4, (1999), p. 231-236.
Depth of Field: the Place of Relief in the Time of Donatello, ed. by P. Curtis, exhibition catalogue, Leeds, Henry Moore Institute, 23 September 2004-27 March 2005, cat. nos 21-22.
É. Antoine, Bologne et le pontifical d'Autun. Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu du premier Trecento, 1330-1340, exhibition catalogue, Autun, Musée Rolin, 12 September 2012 - 9 December 2012, cat. nos. 21-22.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 152.