Gothic Ivories Project | Statuette (Front)

Seated Virgin and Child; Christ seated on the Virgin's left arm; Christ seated frontally; Christ in long robe; Christ holding a bird in his left hand.

Darcel and Basilewski 1874: France, 13th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of the 14th century.
Kube 1925: France, 14th century.
Leeuwenberg 1969: France (?), late 18th century or 1st half of the 19th century.
Kryzhanovskaya 2014: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.

Attribution
Master of the Agrafe Forgeries (Leeuwenberg 1969)

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: green (Virgin's robe).

Reverse
Carved in the round. Cracks and scoring.

Object Condition
Missing: figure of Christ; left forearm of the Virgin and part of her robe; right hand of the Virgin (all later replacements); throne.
Left foot of the Virgin broken into two parts and later glued back together. Cracks at the botttom part of the Virgin's figure. Folds of the Virgin's robe have multiple scratches on the reverse.

Provenance
Collection of Alexander Petrovich Basilewski (b. 1829, d. 1899), Paris, acquired between 1870 and 1874; acquired by the Museum in 1885.

Bibliography
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1752.
A. Darcel, A. P. Basilewski, Collection Basilewski. Catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1874), no. 90.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), p. 408.
N. Kondakov, Imperatorskii Ermitazh. Ukazatel' otdeleniia srednikh vekov i epokhi vozrozhdeniia [Guide to the Department of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of the Imperial Hermitage] (Saint Petersburg, 1891), p. 157.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 249; II, no. 704.
A. N. Kube, Reznaia kost'. Katalog [Ivory Carvings Catalogue Hermitage], (Leningrad [Saint-Petersburg], 1925), no. 65.
J. Leeuwenberg, 'Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories', in Aachener Kunstblätter 39 (1969), p. 121.
Westeuropäische Elfenbeinarbeiten aus der Eremitage Leningrad, exhibition catalogue, Berlin-Köpenick, Kunstgewerbemuseum, 1974, no. 84.
N. Stratford, 'Glastonbury and two gothic ivories in the United States', in British Archaeology Association (1983), pp. 208-216, pl. LXXXVIIb.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (Saint Peterburg, 2014), no. 98.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 13.

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