Inv. 71.157
Register 1: Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body); Two Holy Women at the Tomb, with angel seated on the tomb and three soldiers asleep under a trefoil arch.
Register 2: Deposition with the Virgin holding Christ's hand; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body. Crucifixion with thieves and the Virgin; Longinus standing in prayer; Stephaton giving Christ vinegar.
Register 3: Temptation of Judas; Judas receiving the reward (payment of silver); Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas).
Tracery and buttress towers. Rose windows.
Molinier 1890: France, end of 13th century or beginning of 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 14th century. Attributed to the Soissons Diptych workshop (Atelier du Diptyque de Soissons).
Randall 1985: France (Paris), 1250-1270; related to the Soissons Group.
Detroit 1997 and Museum's opinion 2010: France, Paris or North France, 1250-1270.
Attribution
Soissons group (Atelier du Diptyque de Soissons)(Koechlin 1924)
Reverse
Label with inscription: '542', 'Ivory Plaque. Showing different religious scenes, French, 14th. Century.' and 'WADS. ATH. J. 1948 Naesons(?)'. Right edge slants and curves inward.
Object Condition
Damaged as a result of having been buried. Broken along the left side. Repaired around the hinges on the right side.
Comments
A fragment of the other wing survives in the Musée national du Moyen-Age, Thermes de Cluny (Cl. 417, Koechlin 42). See related object.
Provenance
Collection of Frédéric Spitzer, Paris: his sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 78, bought in; Spitzer family, by inheritance: sold, New York, 9-12 January 1929, lot 544, to Henry Walters; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Bibliography
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 43 (E. Molinier).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 81, 83; II, no. 40.
C. R. Morey, 'Italian Gothic Ivories', in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter (Cambridge, Mss., 1939), I, p. 184, n. 4.
P. Verdier, 'Les Ivoires de Walters Art Gallery', in Art International, 7 (1963), no. 3, p. 32. R. H. Randall, 'A Passion Diptych', in The Walters Art Bulletin, 21:7 (1969), pp. 1-2.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), no. 266.
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. 10-11.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, p. 141.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), pp. 218-221, in relation to no. 68.
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