Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled diptych, 3 registers, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Wing, left)

Wing, left
Register 1: Harrowing of Hell with Adam and Eve coming out of the Mouth of Hell; souls burning in Hell; demon. Noli me Tangere (Christ appearing to saint Mary Magdalene).
Register 2: Three Holy Women at the Tomb, with angel seated on the tomb and three soldiers asleep; soldiers in armour. Entombment (Anointing of Christ's body); tomb decorated with pierced trefoils. Deposition with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body; man with pincers removing the nail from Christ's feet.
Register 3: Temptation of Judas. Judas receiving the reward (payment in silver). Betrayal (Taking of Christ; Kiss of Judas).
Wing, right
Register 1: Resurrected Christ appearing to the Virgin or Christ appearing to the Holy Women. Doubting Thomas (the incredulity of saint Thomas); Ascension, combined with the Last Supper or Supper at Emmaus (?).
Register 2: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Longinus standing in prayer; Stephaton giving Christ vinegar; Stephaton holding a bucket. Carrying of the Cross. Flagellation.
Register 3: Death of Judas (Judas hanging). Christ before Pilate; Pilate washing his hands; soldiers.
Pinnacles. Foliated decoration in the spandrels. Medallions containing hexafoils in the spandrels.

Molinier 1890: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, early 14th century.
Randall 1993: French (North France or Paris), 1250-1270.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Inscription with current inventory number.

Object Condition
Missing: pinnacles (later replacements).
Crack on the left side of the left wing (repaired with butterfly insert).

Provenance
Frédéric Spitzer collection, Paris: his sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 131. Bought by the Museum from Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Co., New York, in 1928.

Bibliography
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 96 (E. Molinier).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 81, 83, 89; II, no. 41.
C. P. Davis, 'A 14th-Century Ivory Diptych', in Bulletin of the City Art Museum of Saint Louis XIV, series 3 (July 1929), pp. 31-32.
Handbook of the Collections: The City Art museum of Saint Louis (St. Louis, 1937), p. 50 (with ill.).
The Life of Christ, exhibition catalogue, Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, 1948, fig. 12.
P. Williamson, An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carvings (London 1982) pp. 42-43, pl. 26.
J. W. Mann, 'Diptych with Scenes from Christ's Passion', in Medieval Art, The Saint Louis Art Museum Bulletin XX (Winter 1992), pp. 35-37.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), no. 49.
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. 12, p. 135; fig. VII-2, p. 99.
C. Hourihane, Pontius Pilate, Anti-Semitism and the Passion in Medieval Art (Princeton, 2009), p. 230, fig. 98.

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