Gothic Ivories Project | Gabled triptych, 3 registers (colonnettes) (Front, closed)

Wing, left
Register 1: Annunciation of the Virgin's death by an angel (Gabriel) with a palm branch; curtain.
Register 2: the Virgin welcomes saint John the Evangelist in Heaven; clouds.
Register 3: Death of the Virgin (Dormition); apostles; God the Father making a blessing gesture; kneeling figure under an arch.
Centre panel
Register 1: Coronation of the Virgin; angel crowning the Virgin, two kneeling angels holding candlesticks; Christ holding a cross.
Register 2: under a trefoil arch, Assumption; Virgin in a mandorla borne to Heaven by angels (bodily Assumption); Christ holding the soul of the Virgin; angels blowing trumpets; musician angels (lute; rebec; psaltery; square drum?); angels holding navettes and swinging censers in the spandrels.
Under 6 arches: entombment of the Virgin; blessing hand of God. Funeral procession of the Virgin; the high priest Jechonias is punished for trying to overturn Mary's bier: his hands stick to it.
Wing, right
Register 1: angels lead the Virgin to Heaven; angel holding a navette and swinging a censer.
Register 2: Assumption (Virgin borne to Heaven by angels); shrouded body of the Virgin; tomb.
Register 3: soldiers in armour; men and women observing the scene from the battlements (part of the funeral scene); city.
Pinnacles; foliated decoration including ivy or vine leaves.

Koechlin 1924: France, beginning of 2nd third of 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 1978: Paris, c. 1320-1330.
Paris 1981: Paris, c. 1330-1340.
Paris 2004: France, c. 1330-1340.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two hinges on either side.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy.

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Customs label with inscription: 'Douanes françaises. Lille St Sauveur'.

Object Condition
Missing: top of the central gable; wings of the angels in the Coronation scene (hole still apparent where they were attached); part of the upper border of the right wing.

Comments
This triptych is very close to another one formerly in the Martin Le Roy collection.

Provenance
Collection of Count Charles de L'Escalopier: his bequest in 1870.

Bibliography
A. Forgeais, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. le Comte Charles de l'Escalopier (Paris, 1867), III, no. 6.
R. Koechlin, 'Un Triptyque d'ivoire du XIV siècle à la Bibliothèque d'Amiens', in Musées et Monuments de France: Revue mensuelle d'art ancien et moderne (1906) I, pp. 6-8.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 139, 214 and 306; II, no. 211; III, pl. LIII.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), pp. 95-96.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), no. and fig. 227, 228.
L'Art du Moyen Age en France, exhibition catalogue, Prague and Bratislava, 1978-1979, no. 62.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 143.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, p. 178.
Moyen Âge: entre ordre et désordre, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée de la Musique, March-June 2004, no. 25.
KIK/IRPA database: http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html [accessed October 2009].

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