Gothic Ivories Project | Diptych, 2 registers, 4 arches across (frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Brussels, Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire - Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst und Geschiedenis (Musée du Cinquantenaire)

Wing, left
Register 1: Ascension with the Virgin; apostles including saint John the Evangelist holding a martyr's palm; angels. Pentecost; Virgin surrounded by the apostles including saint John the Evangelist; dove of the Holy Spirit.
Register 2: Annunciation; vase of lilies; dove of the Holy Spirit. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds; musician shepherd playing the bagpipes.
Wing, right
Register 1: Crucifixion with the Virgin and saint John the Evangelist. Three Holy Women at the Tomb, with angel seated on the tomb and three soldiers asleep.
Register 2: Adoration of the Magi. Entry into Jerusalem.

Koechlin 1924, Brussels 1964, KIK/IRPA database: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Paris 1991: Paris, 3rd quarter or last 3rd of the 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two modern hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy.

Reverse
A sundial has later been engraved on the back of the left wing. Below the sundial, engraved inscription, possibly medieval, to be deciphered.

Object Condition
Vertical cracks down the left wing.

Provenance
Vermeersch bequest in 1911.

Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 187, 188, 190, 215, 294; II, no. 370; III, pl. LXXXII.
A. Jansen, Christelijke Kunst tot het einde der Middeleeuwen - Art chrétien jusqu'à la fin du Moyen Age, exhibition catalogue, Brussels, Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis-Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, 1964, no. 270, pl. CXXV, fig. 263.
Le Trésor de Saint-Denis, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1991, p. 278.
KIK/IRPA database: http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html [accessed October 2009].
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 130 and no. 134.

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