Inv. 2085 (destroyed)
Life of saint Catherine of Alexandria.
Lid
Saint Catherine before emperor Maxentius; saint Catherine refusing pagan sacrifice. Saint Catherine brought before pagan philosophers and orators; soldiers.
Body, front
Saint Catherine is thrown into prison; soldier; kneeling couple including a queen; tree.
End, right
Converted pagan philosophers and orators condemned by Maxentius.
Body, back
Emperor Maxentius ordering the fifty philosophers to be burned alive. Martyrdom of saint Catherine of Alexandria; saint Catherine of Alexandria is tortured on a wheel with iron spikes.
End, left
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is beheaded. Deposition of the body and the head of the martyred saint by four angels.
Diapered background; pilasters; incised trefoils.
Voisin 1870: 14th century.
Westwood 1876: Flanders, end of the 13th century.
Soil de Moriamé 1925: 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: 19th century.
Leeuwenberg 1969: France, last quarter of the 18th century to 1st half of the 19th century.
KIK/IRPA database 2012: 14th century.
Attribution
Master of the Agrafe Forgeries (Leeuwenberg 1969)
Reverse
Carved on all sides.
Object Condition
This piece was already damaged by fire in 1925.
Comments
Westwood describes the missing panels as having two (end) or three (cover/back/front) compartments, totalling 13 divided scenes representing the Life of saint Catherine of Alexandria. The sequence terminates "in her decapitation with angels holding her crowned head over her lifeless body in the tomb." (Westwood 1876).
Provenance
Fauquet collection: Fauquet bequest to the city of Tournai; collection of the Tournai museum; destroyed in 1940, during WWII.
Bibliography
Mgr Voisin, 'Ivoires du Musée Fauquet', in Bulletin de la Société historique et littéraire de Tournai XIV (July 1870), pp. 257-269 (pp. 259-264, with ill.).
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 400 (`73.142).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 330 n. 5.
E. J. Soil de Moriamé, Catalogue sommaire des antiquités et oeuvres des arts décoratifs, conservées au musée de la Halle-aux-draps, à Tournai (Tournai, 1925), no. 2085.
J. Leeuwenberg, 'Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories', in Aachener Kunstblätter 39 (1969), pp. 111-148 (p. 136, n. 59).
KIK/IRPA database: http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html [accessed December 2012].
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