Ivory;gilded base metal and silver (angel only) (later framework).
Adoration of the Magi.
Lowden 2008: Middle Rhineland, c. 1450. Radiocarbon dating produced a date of 565+- 35 years BP, i.e. a 95% probability of a date for the ivory Magi group within the range 1300-1430; and a result of 595 +- 40 BP, i.e. a 95% probability of a date for the ivory Virgin and Child group within the range 1290-1420.
Museum's opinion 2008: Middle Rhineland, 1450-1500 (?).
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Not visible.
Object Condition
Missing: crowns of the standing Magi partly broken.
Comments
Judging from the gazes of the Kings, the Virgin and Child group may originally have been placed slightly higher. The groups were already mounted in this manner in 1879 (see Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1879).
Provenance
John, Lord Malcolm of Polltaloch: sold Christie's, London, 1 May 1913, lot 17. S. J. Whawell and L. M. Loewenstein, London. Ruth and Leopold Blumka; private collection; Thomson collection, Toronto (from 1986); since 2008 Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto.
Bibliography
Catalogue of Bronzes and Ivories, exhibition catalogue, London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1879, no. 263.
Gothic Art in Europe, exhibition catalogue, Burlington Fine Arts Club, (London, 1936), no. 104, pl. XXVI.
Carmen Gómez-Moreno, Medieval Art from Private Collections, exhibition catalogue, The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum (New York, 1968), no. 82.
Liebieghaus Museum alter Plastik, Kunst um 1400 am Mittelrhein. Ein Teil der Wirklichkeit (Frankfurt am Main, 1975), pp. 115-116, no. 6, fig. 94.
J. Cherry, J. Lowden, Medieval Ivories and Works of Art: The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 2008), no. 36.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 16.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.
