Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled polyptych, 2 registers (tabernacle; frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Wings, left
Register 1: Annunciation; angel holding a scroll. Visitation.
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Register 1: Christ in Glory with Resurrection of the Dead under a trefoil arch; souls rising from their tombs. Angels holding Instruments of the Passion (spear; crown of thorns; cross; nails). Virgin Mary and saint John the Baptist kneeling.
Register 2: Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); two standing angels holding candlesticks.
Wings, right
Register 1: maid holding a candle; Nativity with Joseph holding Christ.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Joseph holding a candlestick and a basket of doves brought as offerings.
Pinnacles.

Darcel and Basilewski 1874: France, 13th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of the 1st third of the 14th century.
Kube 1925: France, 14th century.
Leningrad 1973 [Kryzhanovskaya]: France, 1330s.
Kryzhanovskaya 2014: France, end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of two hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding, silver and polychromy: green or blue (painted trefoils in gables and spandrels; lining of garments; hats; architectural details).

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
Repairs around the hinges.
Missing: candles held by the angels (one is a later repair). Later pedestal. Sceptre once held by the Virgin (see old early 20th-century photographs).
Architecture heavily restored. The person who made these restorations has left his name in an inscription: 'Baudoin, 6, rue Vavin, Paris, no. 48'.

Comments
Koechlin (1924) stresses that Baudouin (also spelt Baudoin) was a famous restorer of works of art active in Paris between c. 1860 and 1880. He worked for all major collectors of the time.
Ivory clasps to keep the tabernacle closed.

Provenance
Said to have come from Basse-Normandie. Collection of Alexander Petrovich Basilewski (b. 1829, d. 1899), Paris, from 1865; acquired by the Museum in 1885.

Bibliography
A. Darcel, 'Le Musée rétrospectif', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1865), II, p. 296 and fig. on p. 428.
Exposition de 1865 au Palais de l'industrie, Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l'industrie (Paris, 1866), no. 313.
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1755.
L'Art pour tous 10 (1868-1869), no. 214.
Ch. de Linas, L'histoire du travail à l'exposition universelle de 1867 (Paris, 1868), p. 279.
A. Darcel, A. P. Basilewski, Collection Basilewski. Catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1874), no. 93, pl. XVI.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), p. 408.
A. Darcel, 'Le Moyen-Age et la Renaissance au Trocadéro', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, II (1878), p. 207.
Exposition universelle, Paris, 1878.
P. Breban, Livret-guide du visiteur à l’exposition historique du Trocadéro (Paris, 1878), p. 33.
N. Kondakov, Императорский Эрмитажъ. Указатель отделенія среднихъ вековъ и эпохи возрожденія [Guide to the Department of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of the Imperial Hermitage] (Saint Petersburg, 1891), no. 54, p. 157.
D. L. Charvet, Enseignement de l'art décoratif (Paris, 1900), ill. 638.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ateliers d'ivoiriers français aux XIII et XIVe siècles. II. L'atelier des tabernacles de la Vierge', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 34 (1905), pp. 453-471 (p. 468).
R. Koechlin, 'Les Ivoires gothiques', in A. Michael, Histoire de l'art depuis le premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, II/I, (Paris, 1906), p. 478.
A. N. Kube, Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Putevoditel' po otdeleniiu srednikh vekov i epokhi Vozrozhdeniia [State Hermitage Museum. Guide to the Medieval and Renaissance sections] (Saint Petersburg, 1921), p. 9.
O. Pelka, Elfenbein, 2nd edition (Berlin, 1923), p. 190.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 130, 131, 150, 181; II, no. 172; III, pl. XLIII.
A. N. Kube, Reznaia kost'. Katalog [Ivory Carvings Catalogue Hermitage] (Leningrad [Saint-Petersburg], 1925), no. 86, pl. IV.
Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Kratkii spravochnik s planom i 19 tablitsami (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1934), I, p. 43.
Evropy V-XV vv. (State Hermitage Museum. Applied Arts of Western Europe from the 5th to the 15th century) (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1956), p. 28.
Gosudarsvenniy Ermitazh. Vystavka frantsuzskogo iskusstva XII-XX vv., exhibition catalogue, Moscow, 1956, p. 147.
Ermitazh za 200 let (1764-1964). Istoriia i sostav kollektsii (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg]; Moscow, 1966), p. 65.
Zapadnoevropeiskaia reznaia kost' IX-XIX vekov iz sobraniia Ermitazha: katalog vystavki, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], The State Hermitage Museum, 1973, no. 173.
L. Salmina-Haskell, 'Ivory Carvings from the Hermitage' in Burlington Magazine (April 1974), p. 256.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), p. 149.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les Ivoires' in Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 175.
H.-R. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory. Gothic Carvings in North American Collections, (New York, 1993), no. 32.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by P. Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, pp. 144-146.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, no. 198 (D. Gaborit-Chopin).
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 47.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (Saint Peterburg, 2014), no. 68.

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