Gothic Ivories Project | Wing, left (fragment of a diptych), 1 register, 1 arch across (plaquette); reused as pax (baiser de paix) (Front)

Height: 98mm
Width: 56mm (ivory only)
Depth: 7mm
Weight: 220g (total); possibly 45g

Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two standing angels holding candlesticks.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Lausanne 1982: Ivory: France, 14th century. Silver frame: Upper Rhineland (?), slightly later.
Fribourg 1983: Ivory: France (Paris), 1st half of the 14th century. Frame: France (?), 2nd half of the 14th century.
Richter 2003: ivory: Northern France, first half of the 14th century; silver frame: Switzerland, c. 1450.

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Engraved 17th-century inscriptions along the handle: 'VEREERT.DEM.L.H.PATRONEM.S.NICLAUSEN. DURCH.H.P.PERRET.SALTZMEISTERN.ANNO.1608' and 'Renovatum:a:Petro Perret:Canonico:Anno:1657'.

Object Condition
Restored in 1657 at the expense of canon Pierre Perret.

Comments
Measurement with frame: 140mm x 85mm.

Provenance
Given to the church of Saint-Nicolas in 1608 by the salt master Pierre Perret of Fribourg (see inscription on the back); mentioned in a 1661 inventory as 'pax tecum von Losanen, so h. Perret verrehrt'.

Bibliography
G. Brasey, Le chapitre de l'insigne et exempte Collégiale de Saint-Nicolas à Fribourg, Suisse, 1512-1912 (Fribourg, 1912), p. 166.
Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 7 vols (Neuchâtel [Neuenburg], 1921-1934), V, p. 395.
M. Strub, Les monuments d'art et d'histoire du canton de Fribourg (Basel, 1956), II. La ville de Fribourg, p. 140, fig. 142
Trésors d'art religieux en Pays de Vaud, exhibition catalogue, Lausanne, Musée historique de Lausanne, 1982, no. 60, p. 92.
Trésor de la Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas de Fribourg-Der Kirchenschatz des St. Niklausenmünsters in Freiburg, exhibition catalogue, Fribourg, 22 June-9 October 1983, no. 45.
T. Richter, Paxtafeln und Pacificalia, Studien zu Form, Ikonographie und liturgischem Gebrauch (Weimar, 2003), no. 183, fig. 116.
Die Kathedrale St. Nikolaus in Freiburg. Brennspiegel der europäischen Gotik, dir. by P. Kurmann, exhibition catalogue, Lausanne and Freiburg 2007, p. 210, fig. 228.

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