Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled triptych (tabernacle) (Front)

Height: 200mm
Width: 133mm
Depth: 8-9mm (wings); 18mm (centre)
Weight: 51.1g (left wing); 251.6g (centre panel); 52.4g (right wing)

Wing, left
Register 1: angel swinging a censer.
Register 2: angel holding a candlestick.
Centre panel
Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse).
Wing, right
Register 1: angel swinging a censer and holding a navette.
Register 2: angel holding a candlestick.

Westwood 1876: French (?), 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Morey 1936: Italy, 2nd half of the 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and modern polychromy.

Reverse
Flat. Two vertical cracks.

Object Condition
Missing: upper part of the central gable (replaced). Broken around some hinges (repairs).
Two holes in the bottom (plugged with ivory) and crosshatching.

Comments
The triptych was formerly placed in a later wooden frame (see older photographs).

Provenance
Mentioned in the inventory of Clement XIII, pope from 1758 to 1769 (Inv. Clemente XIII, f. 72).

Bibliography
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), Appendix, no. 15, pp. 347-348.
R. Kanzler, Gli avori dei musei profano e sacro della Biblioteca Vaticana (Rome, 1903), no. 66, pl. XVII.
A. Rossi, Les Ivories gothiques français du Vatican, Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1905), p. 397 (with ill., mirror image).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 122, 125, 136; II, no. 124.
C. R. Morey, Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del Museo Vaticano (Vatican City, 1936), pp. 81-82, no. A94, pl. XXIV.
J. Santrot and D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Le Don Seligman au musée Dobrée: un ivoire parisien du XIVe siècle', in La Revue des musées de France. Revue du Louvre (January 2011), pp. 43-55 (p. 48, fig. 11).

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