Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of polychromy and gilding: flesh tones, blue, red and gold patterns along the hems, blue and red lining the cloaks. Ivory base with painted decoration in the same colours: pointed quatrefoils, ogee arches, tracery. Cracks disguised with foliated tendrils.

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Missing: upper part of Virgin's head; flower held by the Virgin.
Head of Christ broke off and was put back into place.

Provenance
First mentioned in the inventory of the Sacristy in 1370 (Assisi, Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, Fondo antico, Manoscritto 337, f. 20v); still in the Treasury of the Basilica, Assisi.

Bibliography
A. Venturi, 'Un avorio francese del Trecento nel tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi', in L'Arte 9 (1906), p. 218.
M. Logan Berenson, 'L'Exposition d'art ombrien à Pérouse', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 49 (1907), t. II, pp. 220-221.
Catalogo della Mostra d'Antica Arte Umbra, exhibition catalogue, Perugia, 1907 (2nd edition), no. 10, p. 82.
Pératé, 'L'Exposition d'art ombrien', in Les Arts, 71 (Nov. 1907), p. 18.
U. Gnoli, L'Arte umbra alla mostra di Perugia (Bergamo, 1908), p. 90.
B. Mariangeli, Tesori della Basilica e del S. Convento di S. Francesco di Assisi: una statuetta della B. Vergine di avorio', in Miscellanea Francescana 16 (1915), pp. 153-155.
B. Kleinschmidt, Die Basilika San Francesco in Assisi (Berlin, 1915), p. 291.
U. Gnoli, 'Avori francesi nella Galleria Nazionale di Perugia', in Bolletino d'arte, 13 (1919), p. 112, fig. 9.
Inventari della sacristia del Sacro Convento di Assisi compilati nel 1338 contenuti nel Codice 337 della Communale di Assisi, ed. by L. Alessandri and F. Pennacchi (Assisi, 1920), p. 46, no. 34.
U. Gnoli, 'Il Tesoro di San Francesco d'Assisi II', in Dedalo (Feb. 1922), fasc. 9, pp. 575, 577-578.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 33, 114, 237, 252; II, no. 634; III, pl. CVI.
E. Zocca, Assisi (Rome, 1936), p. 153.
E. Hertlein, 'Capolavori francesi in S. Francesco d'Assisi', in Antichità viva (1965), pp. 67-70
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. and fig. 229, 230.
Il tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, exhibition catalogue, Florence and Assisi, 1980, no. 88, pp. 147-148, figs. 113-114, pl. CLXXXVIII-CLXXXIX.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 139.
Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie. Smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania, ed. by P. Giusti, P. Leone de Castris, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Museo Duca di Martina, 1981, p. 42.
P. Williamson, Medieval Sculpture and Works of Art. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (London, 1987), pp. 118, 120, fig. 5.
The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present, ed. by R. Panzanelli with E. Schmidt and K. Lapatin, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 6 March-23 June 2008, pp. 66-67, fig. 53.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 55, in relation to no. 5.