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

Wings, left
Register 1: Figure of the Church (Ecclesia) holding a cross and chalice; angel blowing a trumpet; angel holding instruments of the Passion (spear; crown of thorns).
In spandrels of register 2: Resurrection of the Dead; souls rising from their tombs (including a bishop with mitre).
Register 2: Adoring Magi (part of the Adoration of the Magi).
Centre panel
Register 1: Last Judgement (Christ in Glory); Christ displaying his wounds; Virgin Mary and saint John the Baptist kneeling.
Register 2: Standing Virgin and Child (Vierge glorieuse); Virgin holding a stem of flowers; two standing angels holding candlesticks.
Wings, right
Register 1: Angel holding instruments of the Passion (cross; nails); angel blowing a trumpet; figure of the Synagogue (Synagoga), blindfolded, holding a broken spear and the tables of the Law.
Register 2: Presentation in the Temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon; Joseph holding a basket of doves brought as offerings.
Spandrels of register 2, on the wings: Resurrection of the Dead; souls rising from their tombs (including a pope with his tiara and a bishop with mitre).

Darcel and Basilewski 1874: France or Italy (?), 13th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd third of the 14th century.
Kube 1925: France, 14th century.
Leningrad 1973 [Kryzhanovskaya]: France, c. 1360.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Two sets of three ring hinges on either side. Traces of earlier hinges.

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive gilding and polychromy: gold (hair and beards; along the hems; decorative pattern in the background; painted trefoils, etc.), red (inside the Virgin's veil; blood; lips), blue (lining of garments; architectural details), green (basket; spear, etc.), painted trefoils, arches and medallions, painted haloes. Decoration on the base (later).

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Back of the centre panel slightly rounded along the longer edges.

Object Condition
Architecture heavily restored. Pedestal restored.
Columns of the centre part replaced with copper pilasters (in the 16th century, according to Darcel and Basilewski in 1874).

Comments
Label at the front of the base with inscription '115'.
Four holes in the underside including one central (plugged). The back left corner of this bottom panel seems has been cut at right angel.

Provenance
Collection of Louis Fould (b. 1794, d. 1858), Paris: his sale, Paris, 4 June 1860, lot 1693; collection of Alexander Petrovich Basilewski (b. 1829, d. 1899), Paris; acquired by the Museum in 1885.

Bibliography
A. Darcel,' La collection Louis Fould', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6 (1860), p. 279.
P. Burty, 'Vente de la collection Louis Fould' in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 7 (1860), p. 58.
A. Chabouillet, Description des antiquités et objets d'art composant le cabinet de M. Louis Fould (Paris, 1861), no. 1693.
A. Darcel, 'Le Musée rétrospectif', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1865), II, p. 296.
Exposition de 1865 au Palais de l'industrie, Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l'industrie (Paris, 1866), no. 314.
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1754.
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. 94.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), p. 409.
A. Darcel, 'Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance au Trocadéro', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1878), II, p. 202.
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. 52, p. 157.
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.11.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 133; II, no. 173.
A. N. Kube, Reznaia kost'. Katalog [Ivory Carvings Catalogue Hermitage], (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1925), no. 87.
Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Kratkii spravochnik s planom i 19 tablitsami (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1934), I, p. 46.
E. A. Lapkovskaia, Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Prikladnoe iskusstvo Zapadnoi 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.
Zapadnoevropeiskaia reznaia kost' IX-XIX vekov iz sobraniia Ermitazha: katalog vystavki, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], The State Hermitage Museum, 1973, no. 179.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Nekotorye aspekty sobiratel'stva i issledovaniia pamiatnikov prikladnogo iskusstva srednevekov'ia v XIX v., in Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1977), Vol. 18, p. 9.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (Saint Peterburg, 2014), no. 69.

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