Death of the Virgin (Dormition); apostles including saint John the Evangelist holding a martyr's palm; apostle holding a cross; apostle holding an aspergillum and an open book (possibly saint Peter); seated apostle with glasses; Holy Women; mirror (?) at the head of the bed; Assumption (Virgin borne to Heaven by angels).
Crosshatched background. Foliated decoration. Roped border. Twisted column; column with chevron decoration.
Scholten 2004 and Museum's opinion 2011: Netherlands, c. 1480-1500.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Ornate ivory handle in the form of a letter B, decorated with a trefoil, set into a chamfered slot.
Comments
Scholten (2010) notes that the pax is a copy of a Parisian woodcut from a book of hours published by Antoine Vérard in 1500, included in cat. Hasselt, Generale Bank, Hasselt 1989, no. 178.
Provenance
Jan Dirven, art dealer, Eindhoven (c. 1964); private collection, Netherlands; Christie's, Amsterdam, 24 September 2003, lot 665; purchased by the Museum at this sale.
Bibliography
F. Scholten, 'Een Nederlandse ivoren pax uit de Late Middeleeuwen', in Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, vol. 52, no. 1 (2004), pp. 3-23, figs. 1,4-6.
Een hogere werkelijkheid, Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, ed. by F. Scholten and G. de Werd, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Museum Kurhaus Kleef, 2004, pp. 142-3, no. 66.
F. Scholten, 'A late medieval ivory of the Immaculate Conception from the Low Countries' in 'Luft unter die Flügel... Beiträge zur mitterlalterlichen Kunst: Festschrift für Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, ed. by A. von Hülsen-Esch and D. Täube (Hildesheim, Munich and New York, 2010), pp. 186-192 (pp. 191-2, figs. 4-5).
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