Trinity; God the Father holding Christ on the cross; Gnadenstuhl (Throne of Mercy); Virgin and saint John the Evangelist; Adam collecting Christ's blood in a chalice at the foot of the cross.
Four Symbols of the Evangelists with scrolls in the spandrels: angel of saint Matthew, eagle of saint John the Evangelist; ox of saint Luke and lion of saint Mark.
In a quatrefoil enclosed in a diamond. Pointed trefoils.
Randall 1993: English, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Hinges
Traces of two missing hinges on the left side.
Reverse
Flat and smooth. A slot in the back, added later (where a handle would have been fitted) shows that this piece was reused as a pax.
Object Condition
Deterioration on the Christ figure and in the centre of the scene, possibly due to burial in the ground (Randall 1993). Broken around the upper hinge. Later hole drilled at the top centre.
Comments
The left wing of this diptych is now in Cambridge at the Fitzwilliam Museum, M. 21.1917. See related object.
Provenance
Collection of Princess Borghese: Borghese sale, Rome, 24 March 1892, lot 114. Gift of John Gellatly in 1929.
Bibliography
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), no. 62.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), pp. 64-67, fig. 37, in relation to no. 7.
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