Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled triptych, 3 registers (tabernacle) (Front)

Wing, left
Register 1: Annunciation of the Virgin's death by an angel (Gabriel).
Register 2: Saint John receives the palm from the Virgin; female onlookers.
Register 3: The miraculous transportation of the apostles, bringing them to the Virgin's deathbed.
Centre panel
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin; two standing angels holding candlesticks.
Register 2: Assumption; Virgin in a mandorla borne to Heaven by angels; musician angels (portable organ; string instrument; psaltery).
Register 3: Death of the Virgin (Dormition); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin; blessing hand of God. Funeral procession of the Virgin; the high priest Jechonias is punished for trying to overturn Mary's bier: his hands stick to it.
Wing, right
Register 1: men holding candles (part of the funeral procession); couple watching from the battlements.
Register 2: Virgin brought to Heaven by angels; shrouded body of the Virgin.
Register 3: Virgin received in Heaven by angels.

Molinier 1890: France, beginning of the 14th century.
Koechlin 1906: France, early 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of the 2nd third of the 14th century.

Attribution
Master of the Death of the Virgin (Natanson 1951)

Hinges
Two hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: haloes, lining of garments, decoration on the throne. Traces of gilding: hair.

Reverse
Unable to view.

Object Condition
Missing: palm in the upper register of the left wing (replaced by a candle in a later restoration campaign); gables of all panels (repaired).
The angel crowning the Virgin is a 14th-century addition, according to Koechlin, but he considers the crown to be original. He also argues that the base is a later addition.
All angels have holes in their shoulders where were wings originally were inserted.

Provenance
Collection of Frédéric Spitzer, Paris: his sale, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 83. Martin Le Roy collection, Neuilly-sur-Seine (at least from 1902 to 1924).

Bibliography
L. Gonse, L'Art gothique : l'architecture, la peinture, la sculpture, le décor (Paris, 1890), p. 447.
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 48 (E. Molinier).
E. Molinier, Histoire générale des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie (Paris, 1896), I: Les Ivoires, p. 191, pl. XVI.
G. Migeon, La collection Martin Le Roy, Les Arts 10 (November 1902), p. 13.
R. Koechlin, Catalogue raisonné de la collection Martin Le Roy, Fasc. II: Ivoires et sculptures (Paris, 1906), no. 21, pl. XIII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 139, 214, 306; II, no. 210; III, pl. LII.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 35, fig. 26.

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