Register 1: Deposition with the Virgin holding Christ's hand; saint John the Evangelist holding Christ's other hand; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
Register 2: Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body); Virgin praying.
Border of dentils.
Koechlin 1924: French, 1st quarter of the 14th century.
Randall 1985: French (Paris), 1st quarter of the 14th century.
Detroit 1997: French (Paris), 1280-1300.
Robinson 2008: French (Paris), 1280 - 1300.
Museum's opinion 2011: French (Paris), 1280-1300.
Attribution
Rose group (Koechlin 1924)
Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on the left side.
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy and gilding: green (draperies, bands or rosettes); gold (halos, with a black outline; decorated background with dots). Alternating lancets and circles decorate the tomb.
Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Comments
The left wing is now in Baltimore (Walters Art Museum, 71.124). See related object.
Both of these pieces belong to the Rose Group.
Provenance
Purchased by the British Museum with help from The Art Fund from F. E. Teusch of Gosport (Lancashire), 1943; said to have been found by the vendor in a second-hand shop in Gosport.
Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 151, 154; II, no. 235.
R. H. Randall, Medieval Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, 1969), no. 17.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), p. 208 (in relation to 71.124, no. 288).
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, pp. 136-137, no. 13-14.
The Book of Kings, ed. by W. Noel and D. Weiss, exhibition catalogue, Baltimore, Walters Art Museum (Baltimore and London, 2002), no. 11.
J. Robinson, Masterpieces of Medieval Art (London, 2008), p. 38.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 555, in relation to no. 158.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), p. 227, in relation to no. 70.
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