Gothic Ivories Project | Writing tablets, 1 register, 1 full and 2 half arches across (tablettes à écrire; plaquettes); reused as part of a monstrance (Front)

Height: 65mm (each ivory); 271mm (total)
Width: 33mm (each); 97mm (total)
Depth: 3mm (each); 93mm (total)

Wing, right
Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit.
Wing, left
Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist.

Neumann 1891: no location, late Gothic (ivory) and end of the 15th century (metalwork).
Falke, Schmidt, Swarzenski 1930: Germany, end of the 14th century.
Frankfurt 1930: Germany, end of the 14th century.
Berlin 1935: Germany, end of the 14th century.
Kötzsche 1973: no location, 3rd quarter of the 14th century (ivory) and Lower Saxony (Brunswick?), end of the 14th century (metalwork).
de Winter 1985: Cologne, 3rd quarter of the 14th century (ivory) and end of the 14th century (metalwork).
de Winter 1986: Brunswick (?), end of the 14th century (ivory).
Museum's opinion 2012: no location, 3rd quarter of the 14th century (ivory) and Lower Saxony (Brunswick?), end of the 14th century (metalwork).

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Recessed to receive the wax, with raised border.

Object Condition
Breakage in the upper part of the left wing at the back.

Provenance
From the Treasury of the church of Saint Blasius in Braunschweig (Brunswick); collection of the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (Treasure of the Guelphs, 'Welfenschatz'); acquired by the Museum on 14 June 1935 from a consortium of art dealers.

Bibliography
W. A. Neuman, Der Reliquienschatz des Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg (Vienna, 1891), p. 293, no. 64.
O. von Falke, R. Schmidt, G. Swarzenski, Der Welfenschatz. Der Reliquienschatz des Braunschweiger Domes aus dem Besitz des Herzoglichen Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg (Frankfurt am Main, 1930), pp. 90, 184, no. 51.
Der Welfenschatz, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, 1930, p. 58, no. 51.
Der Welfenschatz. Einführung und beschreibendes Verzeichnis, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, Schlossmuseum, 1935, pp. 52ff., no. 35.
D. Kötzsche, Der Welfenschatz in Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseum (Bilderheft der Staatlichen Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin, 20/21) (Berlin, 1973), pp. 55, 79, no. 39.
P. M. de Winter, 'The Sacral Treasure of the Guelphs', in The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72 (1985), p. 141, no. 53.
P. M. de Winter, Der Welfenschatz. Zeugnis sakraler Kunst des Deutschen Mittelalters (Hannover, 1986), p. 173, no. 53.

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