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Gabled panels (4), 2 registers, 1 arch across (fragments of a polyptych; tabernacle; frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Gabled panels (4), 2 registers, 1 arch across (fragments of a polyptych; tabernacle; frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)
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Subject
Religious. Infancy of Christ.

Repository Institution
mv.vatican.va

To purchase an image
mv.vatican.va


Rome, Vatican, Musei Vaticani

Inv. 64663 (Morey A90)

Ivory

Height: 277mm
Width: 45-50mm
Depth: 5-8mm
Weight: 445g

Wings, left
Register 1: Annunciation. Visitation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of Adoration of the Magi); attendant with horses.
Wings, right
Register 1: Nativity; hanging lamp.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Joseph holding a candlestick and a basket of doves brought as offerings; Virgin holding Christ.
Pinnacles.


Koechlin Number: 0161

Westwood 1876: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of the 1st third of the 14th century.
Morey 1936: Italy, 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Modern hinges. Originally, two sets of two ring hinges on either side of the missing centre piece (some lost as the centre panel of the tabernacle has been lost).

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: decoration in the background (including fleur-de-lis patterns, haloes, painted medallions enclosing quatrefoils in the spandrels; painted trefoils in the gables; painted dove in the Annunciation scene.

Reverse
Smooth. Some panels slightly curved.

Object Condition
Missing: centre panel with the standing Virgin and Child.

Comments
The missing centre panel would originally have shown the standing Virgin and Child (see Louvre, OA 2587 for an extant example of this type of polyptych).

Provenance
Acquired before 1876.

Bibliography
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), Appendix, no. 16, p. 348.
R. Kanzler, Gli avori dei musei profano e sacro della Biblioteca Vaticana (Rome, 1903), no. 59, pl. XIII.
A. Rossi, 'Les Ivoires gothiques français du Vatican', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1905, I, p. 393 (mirror image).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 125, 127, 129; II, no. 161.
C. R. Morey, Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del Museo Vaticano (Vatican City, 1936), p. 80, no. A90, pl. XXIII.


Image

Foto © Musei Vaticani.

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