Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding.

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Missing: upper part of candlestick; wings (replaced in the 19th century when the reliquary was rededicated to saint Romain). The wings were originally made out of metal.
Face recarved in the 17th century after an accident (fire) which damaged his right arm and part of his torso (Paris 1991, p. 232).

Comments
The two Rouen angels once accompanied a standing Virgin and Child now in Cincinnati, Taft Museum, 1931.319. The 1505 Saint-Denis abbey inventory mentions that the Virgin was originally accompanied by two standing angels and a small flying one (placed on a column behind the Virgin), crowning her. The 1634 inventory is the most detailed in its description, by then, the third angel seemed to have disappeared. For full transcription of the surviving documents, see Montesquiou-Fezensac and Gaborit-Chopin, 1977. The two standing angels were separated from the Virgin to be integrated in the reliquary shrine of Saint Placide and Saint Flavie after 1642 at Saint-Denis. After the Revolution, the confiscated reliquary was sent to Rouen Cathedral where it was changed into a shrine for the local patron saint, Romain (the cross which crowned the reliquary is now missing). The angels have remained in Rouen since. Inscription on the gilt copper stand: 'ANNO DOMINI MCCCXL FRATER PETRUS DE PLAILLY QUARTUS PRIOR ET GALTERUS DE PONTOYZES CAMERARIUS ISTIUS ECCLESIAE TUNC TEMPORIS HUNC VAS ARGENTEUM DEVOTE DOMINO OBTULERUNT IN QUO HAS SANCTAS RELIQUIAS DECENTER COLLOCARI FECERUNT'. This inscription records that the reliquary the stand was part of was given in 1340 by Pierre de Plailly and Gautier de Pontoise who later became abbot of Saint-Denis (1351-1354). The Saint Romain Reliquary is made of gilt silver, copper, rock crystal.

Provenance
The two standing angels were separated from the Virgin (now in Cincinnati) to be integrated in a reliquary shrine of Saint Placide and Saint Flavie after 1642 at Saint-Denis. After the Revolution, the confiscated reliquary was sent to Rouen Cathedral where it was changed into a shrine for the local patron saint, Romain (the cross which crowned the reliquary is now missing). The reliquary is thus part of the Treasury of Rouen Cathedral since c. 1793.

Bibliography
M. Félibien, Histoire de l'Abbaye Royale de Saint-Denis (Paris, 1706), pl. I, letter Q.
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue Officiel illustré de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), no. 101, p. 20 (ill.).
E. Molinier, F. Marcou, L'Exposition rétrospective de l'Art français des origines à 1900 (Paris, 1900), p. 8 and ill. (héliogravure).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 22, 259; II, no. 718; III, pl. CXVIII.
B. de Montesquiou-Fezensac, 'Le Reliquaire de saint Romain', in Monuments historiques (1956), pp. 137-141.
Trésors des églises de France, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée des arts décoratifs, 1965, no. 209.
Art of the Courts of France and England from 1259-1328; L'Art et la cour: France et Angleterre 1259-1328, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa, Galerie nationale du Canada, 1972, no. 71, pl. 96A-B.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, B. de Montesquiou-Fezensac, Le Trésor de Saint-Denis (Paris, 1973 and 1977), I: Inventaire de 1634, pp. 30-32; II: Documents divers, pp. 47-52.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), in relation to no. and fig. 200.
C. T. Little, 'Ivoires et art gothique', in Revue de l'art, 46 (1979), pp. 58-67 (esp. p. 62, fig. 9).
R. H. Randall, 'The Ivory Virgin of St. Denis', in Apollo, CXXVIII:322 (December 1988), pp. 394-398.
Le Trésor de Saint-Denis, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1991, pp. 195, 231-237, no. 46.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'La Vierge à l'enfant et les anges d'ivoire du trésor de Saint-Denis', in La Revue du Louvre, 4 (1991), pp. 26-27.
D. Torbet Johnson, 'Taft Museum', in Ventura, IV:16 (June-August 1991), p. 139.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), in relation to no. 3 (Virgin).
Le trésor de la cathédrale de Rouen, exhibition catalogue, Rouen, Musée des antiquités de la Seine-Maritime, 26 May-31 December 1993, no. 18.
The Taft Museum (New York, 1995), pp. 462-464 (Randall).
Un Trésor gothique: la châsse de Nivelles, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Schnütgen museum and Paris, MNMA-Cluny, 1995-1996, in relation to no. 40.
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. 6, pp. 124-126.
Chefs-d'oeuvre du Gothique en Normandie, sculpture et orfèvrerie du XIII au XVe siècle, exhibition catalogue, Caen, musée de Normandie, 14 June-2 November 2008 and Toulouse, ensemble conventuel des Jacobins, December 2008-April 2009, no. 81 (Catherine Arminjon).
S. Guérin, 'An ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor's oeuvre', in The Burlington Magazine 1311, Vol. CLIV (June 2012), pp. 394-402, fig. 14.