Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 6 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: Dormition (Death of the Virgin); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin; apostles including saint John the Evangelist with a martyr's palm. Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin; two angels swinging censers.
Register 2: Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit. Nativity (Virgo Lactans) and Annunciation to the Shepherds; swaddled Christ; musician shepherd holding bagpipes.
Wing, right
Register 1: Trinity; God the Father holding Christ on the cross; Gnadenstuhl (Throne of Mercy); two kneeling angels; dove of the Holy Spirit. Last Judgement with Resurrection of the Dead under a trefoil arch (Christ in Glory); Christ displaying his wounds; angels holding Instruments of the Passion (cross; nails; crown of thorns; spear); Virgin Mary and saint John the Baptist kneeling; souls rising from their tombs (including a king).
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi. Presentation in the Temple; Joseph holding a candle and a basket of doves brought as offerings; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon; hanging lamp.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.

Bertaux 1912: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of the 14th century (right wing).
Schnitzler, Volbach, Bloch 1964: France (Paris), after 1350.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges (miters filled with ivory).

Object Condition
Numerous holes in the inner border.

Provenance
Wing, left: unknown early provenance, exhibited in Basel in 1951.
Wing, right: collection of Cardinal Louis-Jacques-Maurice de Bonald (b. 1787, d. 1870), archbishop of Lyons (the cardinal had acquired it in Le Puy, in Auvergne); collection of Mr. Billard-Destournelle who had inherited it from the niece of Cardinal de Bonald. Collection of Claudius Côte, Lyons (at least 1912-1954).
Both wings: Collection of E. and M. Kofler-Truniger, Lucerne (in 1964).

Bibliography
E. Bertaux, Quelques pièces de la collection Claudius Côte (Lyon, 1912), pl. XIX.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 187, 190; II, no. 375 (right wing).
Katalog Kunsthalle, exhibition catalogue (Basel, 1951), no. 22 (left wing).
H. Schnitzler, F. Volbach, P. Bloch, Skulpturen, Elfenbein, Perlmutter, Stein, Holz Europäisches Mittelalter, Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, 2 vols (Lucerne, 1964), no. S.63, p. 22 (both wings).

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