The Gothic Ivories Project at the Courtauld Institute of Art

Abstract

The production of ivory objects flourished to an extraordinary extent in the Gothic period, especially in France: delicate statuettes, minutely carved diptychs and triptychs, mirror backs and caskets with secular scenes have survived in collections around the world. The only comprehensive survey of Gothic ivories, which inventoried over 1300 items, was published by Raymond Koechlin in his three-volume work Les Ivoires gothiques francais in 1924.1 Since then, however, many more ivories have surfaced in auction houses and in private and public collections; valuable articles and catalogues have been written; scientific examination and increasing expertise have all shed more light on these objects. Initiated in 2008 at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, the Gothic Ivories Project is a 'Koechlin for the twenty-first century' and, as such, takes the form of a database rather than a printed book.2 It focuses on Gothic ivory sculpture made in Europe from about 1200 to about 1530, but also includes some bone pieces (excluding Embriachi), fifteenth-century engraved stag-horn saddles and later neo-Gothic pieces.Taking as a starting point the photographic resources of the Conway Library at the Courtauld, which represent over 1,500 ivory objects in private and public collections, the project subsequently began to collaborate with repository institutions to make this resource as comprehensive as possible. From the start, the generous support of key museums, homes to the largest collections of ivories of this period - such as the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Musee du Louvre and the Musee de Cluny in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore - played an essential part in the success of this venture. Institutions, large and small, be they museums, cathedral treasuries or religious foundations, generously shared information and images and, thanks to their invaluable input, the website www.gothicivories.courtauld. ac.uk (fig. 1), launched in December 2010 with 750 objects, now contains detailed entries for over 3,800 pieces, illustrated with 10,600 images, from more than 300 collections in twenty different countries. However, with an estimated total of over 5,000 pieces, the project is still a work in progress, with numerous small collections and a few large ones yet to be added, the latter including the ivories of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich and of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.While the emphasis has been on public collections, the project is also collaborating with private collectors, and the auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's to record pieces sold in their rooms. Moreover, the user will find on the site a large number of objects whose current whereabouts are unknown, as well as pieces which have been lost, stolen or destroyed (searching for these words in the museum number field will bring the relevant results).3 As was to be feared, a large number of objects were destroyed in the turmoil of the Second World War.4 Ongoing contributions from documentation centres such as that of the Departement des Objets d'Art at the Louvre, and from repositories of historical photographs, such as the Mediatheque de l'Architecture du Patrimoine in France, the KIK/IRPA in Belgium, the Rheinisches Bildarchiv in Germany, or the Arxiu Mas in Spain, are all gradually enhancing the value of the site, and are helping to resurrect some of these lost pieces. In this endeavour, the popular nineteenth-century practice of making plaster casts of ivory carvings, although it submitted the original work to damaging treatment, is now proving extremely valuable, especially when the original has disappeared. This is the case of a diptych wing featuring the Adoration of the Magi formerly in the collection of Sir Andrew Fountaine (1676-1753): the plaster cast provides the only visual record of the piece, allowing it to be recognized should it resurface in a private collection or on the art market (fig. …