Inv. 64659 (Morey A105)
1: Ascension; clouds. Pentecost; Virgin surrounded by the Apostles; dove of the Holy Spirit.
2: Dormition (death of the Virgin); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin. Coronation of the Virgin; Christ crowning the Virgin; angels swinging censers.
3: Carrying of the Cross with the Virgin helping Christ. Raising of the Cross.
4: Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist. Deposition with the Virgin holding Christ's hand; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
5: Resurrection; two angels kneeling on the tomb; two soldiers asleep; blessing gesture. Harrowing of Hell with Adam and Eve coming out of the Mouth of Hell.
Tracery; border of dentils; pierced trefoils in the gables.
Westwood 1876: Spain, 15th or 16th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, mid 15th century.
Egbert 1929: Northern Italy (under German influence), early 15th century.
Morey 1936: Northern Italy, 1st half of the 15th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Flat and smooth.
Object Condition
Missing: part of the architecture framing the Raising of the Cross; part of the cross held by Christ in the Resurrection scene.
Comments
According to Morey (1936), panels 3-4-5 were pasted on a cardboard lined with velvet. Traces of glue on the back of panels 1 and 2. The hole between plaque 3 and 4 is probably due to a missing lock, as they were part of a casket.
Provenance
The Ascension and Dormition panels came from the collection of Francesco Vettori (b. 1692, d. 1770), Prefect and curator of the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library from 1757.
Bibliography
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), Appendix, p. 347, no. 14.
X. Barbier de Montault, in Revue de l'art chrétien V (1887), pp. 92-93.
R. Kanzler, Gli avori dei musei profano e sacro della Biblioteca Vaticana (Rome, 1903), pl. XIX, no. 3-7.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 324; II, no. 867.
D. D. Egbert, 'North Italian Gothic Ivories in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library', in Art Studies 7 (1929), p. 200, fig. 58b.
C. R. Morey, Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del Museo Vaticano (Vatican City, 1936), pp. 84-85, no. A105, pl. XXVIII.
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