Gothic Ivories Research Articles

Identifying a Literary Antecedent to the Siege of the Castle of Love in Gothic Ivories

Identifying a Literary Antecedent to the Siege of the Castle of Love in Gothic Ivories

Fighter, Player, Hunter: Queer Women and Female Agents on Secular Gothic Ivories

Fighter, Player, Hunter: Queer Women and Female Agents on Secular Gothic Ivories

Illuminating the Middle Ages: Tributes to Prof. John Lowden from His Students, Friends and Colleagues ed. by Laura Cleaver, Alixe Bovey and Lucy Donkin

Reviewed by: Illuminating the Middle Ages: Tributes to Prof. John Lowden from His Students, Friends and Colleagues ed. by Laura Cleaver, Alixe Bovey and Lucy Donkin Joan A. Holladay Laura Cleaver, Alixe Bovey, and Lucy Donkin, eds. Illuminating the Middle Ages: Tributes to Prof. John Lowden from His Students, Friends and Colleagues. Library of the Written Word 79; The Manuscript World 12. Leiden: Brill, 2020. xxii, 481 pp., 138 ills. €198. ISBN: 978-90-04-42232-2. In the course of John Lowden’s distinguished career, he has concentrated on three separate areas of medieval art: manuscript illumination in both Byzantium and western Europe and ivory carving. In all three fields he has taken on big topics: the Octateuchs with their 550 scenes, the even more prolifically illustrated Bibles moralisées, and the thousands of preserved ivories now catalogued online in the Gothic ivories project that he directs at the Courtauld Institute. Close examination of the works and detailed study of context, in the sense of both the physical matrix and the social and political milieux that produced these works, have been the hallmarks of his scholarship. In the twenty-eight short articles in Illuminating the Middle Ages, specialists in the latter two of these three fields deploy these same approaches to pay tribute to their teacher and friend; Byzantine art has been omitted “to make it possible to lift the resulting book” (1). The articles, only some of which can be addressed here, examine works made between the tenth century and about 1500 with the greatest concentration on those from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries; they are ordered more or less chronologically. Manuscripts from Italy, Germany, France, and Spain are represented, although the largest number of studies are devoted to works of English provenance. Iconography and text-image [End Page 205] relationships are a concern throughout, as are context and audience; style and technique play lesser roles. Two essays devoted to ivories and one to mosaics seem a bit like outliers, although Sarah Guérin’s on ivory plaques assembled as booklets does indeed include two-dimensional painting on the leaves bound inside the carved covers of the same material. The only article that mentions the moralized Bibles to which Lowden devoted award-winning work is Mika Takiguchi’s on the mosaic scenes of Noah’s ark at Monreale Cathedral. A number of the essays are fairly straightforwardly iconographic. Maria Grasso identifies patristic sources for the portrayal in the Codex Aureus of Echternach of the souls of Lazarus and Dives as homunculi exiting from the dead men’s mouths; their green tint, she argues, is intended to connote a different state of being from living humans. Christian Heck, in a contribution on ants portrayed in a fifteenth-century Italian representation of the death of Saint Martin, finds in Pliny the knowledge that they were, apart from humans, the only animals to bury their dead. Author portraits of Terence and Aristotle, examined by Beatrice Radden Keefe and Hanna Wimmer, respectively, use similar devices to show these authors’ foreign origins; Wimmer subtly weaves into her discussion medieval ideas about authorship and the reception of the ancient philosopher’s work in Paris in the second half of the thirteenth century. A jointly authored essay by Patricia Stirnemann and Judith Kogel uses personal features in the Psalter of Blanche of Castile to associate the manuscript with the French queen more firmly than heretofore. The portrait of Abraham Ibn Ezra at the beginning of the book is one of these, commemorating the role of Blanche’s homeland in both new intellectual activity and translation from other languages, perhaps at the behest of Roger de Four-nival, the court scholar from Amiens, where the manuscript seems to have been illuminated. A similarly personalized book, with the text of Saint Anselm’s Prayers and Meditations, is T. A. Heslop’s subject. Admont 289 is, he argues, a “later derivative” (94) of a manuscript sent by the author himself to Matilda of Tuscany in 1104. Its significant deviations from another manuscript that also goes back to “an Anselmian original” (96) result from and refer to the [End Page 206] intertwined lives of the archbishop and the...

Terracotta Casts and the Question of Transmission in Gothic Ivory Carving

Terracotta Casts and the Question of Transmission in Gothic Ivory Carving

The Gothic Ivories Project at the Courtauld Institute of Art

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. …

Gothic ivory carvings at the British Museum

The project to catalogue the British Museum's ivory carvings for the Courtauld Institute of Art's Gothic Ivories Project was a timely opportunity to begin a reappraisal of this excellent collection. This process took place over a two-year period from 2009, during which 187 Gothic ivories from the late medieval collection were catalogued, providing a springboard for renewed research into the collection. New photography of the pieces was commissioned, resulting in high-resolution images of the carvings being made available on the museum's online catalogue in addition to the Gothic Ivories Project. The ivories were measured and weighed, their bibliographies updated and their iconography classified to fit the terminology of the project database. Certain areas of the collection have also received increased study, particularly secular carvings, nineteenth-century objects (both emulations and forgeries) and the collecting history of medieval ivories at the museum. The success of this partnership has led to an Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award between the British Museum and the Courtauld Institute of Art specifically to work on the corpus.This investigation into the museum's ivories focuses primarily on three key areas: provenance and collecting history; forgeries; and the review of the dates and locations of manufacture. Since the work of O.M. Dalton in 1909, there has not been a complete study of the British Museum's ivory carvings, and many pieces continue to be catalogued internally with Dalton's conclusion that they were French and fourteenth century.1 On the subject of Paris, Dalton wrote 'the majority of the ivories produced in the 14th century may have been assigned to the source'.2 Over a century later it is clear that a review of this scholarship is long overdue.Publishing the carvings through the Gothic Ivories Project has brought new insights into the collection, particularly by drawing parallels with pieces in other institutions. Current research on knife handles has revealed two pieces which correspond with the youth holding a falcon type identified by Mogens Bencard in his study of 24 such carvings in bone and ivory.3 We can add to Bencard's corpus two examples from the British Museum (inv. nos. 1867,0320.17 and 1856,0701.1507) along with two others brought to light through the Gothic Ivories Project: one from the Historisches Museum, Basel (inv. no. 1928,837) and another from the Skulpturensammlung und Museum fur Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin (inv. no. 06/58). Drawing together these ivory and bone pieces in English, Swiss and German collections with those Bencard had catalogued, which were predominantly from Danish archaeo- logical origins, provides valuable insight into the use and manufacture of these carvings. This enlarged corpus of the youth-with-falcon type also suggests the relatively widespread distribution of this knife handle motif, predominantly within northern Europe, as no examples are currently known to originate from Italy or Spain.The period from 1831 to 1871 was the most active for the purchase of ivory carvings at the British Museum, and studying the motivations behind these purchases has already yielded some interesting findings. During those four decades, around half of the present collection was acquired. Of particular importance was the collection of William Maskell (1814-90), a liturgical scholar from whom the museum purchased 170 ivories, nearly half of which are Gothic in style.4 The provenance of these pieces remains a mystery, and very little is known about their origins other than their date of formal acquisition into the institution on 23 June 1856. The museum's archive, which includes Maskell's own notes on his collection, has provided the starting point for an investigation into the provenance of these pieces, and has yielded important new information. One recent discovery is Maskell's purchase of a number of ivories from the Amiens collector M. …

Casting ivories in exchange? A short history of the Brussels atelier de moulage

The collection of the atelier du moulage at the Royal Museums for Art and History, Brussels contains interesting examples of fictile ivory casts of Byzantine, early Christian and Gothic ivories. The collections, deliberately heterogeneous in conception, hold some 36 casts and moulds of Gothic ivory carvings. Their collecting pattern followed - it would initially seem - no particular plan. This article asks whether this is in fact the case. Through an analysis of the history of the atelier de moulage it becomes clear that a strong link between the Belgian government and the museum was responsible for the development of the collection of moulds and plaster casts.

Putting together the pieces: composite techniques in Gothic ivories

This article explores the practice of composite ivory assemblage: a range of techniques employed to join more than one discrete piece of ivory to make a complete sculptural element such as a triptych panel. The practice is found in extant diptychs, triptychs, polyptych tabernacles and figural altar groups amassed in collections around the world. Four ivories are here examined, from three different workshops, presenting a range of composite assemblage techniques. The four examples offer insights into the different ways in which ivory carvers employed leftover materials to complete complex compositions.

The art of Gothic ivories: studies at the crossroads

Building on the impressive gains in the study of Gothic ivories in the last decades, scholars can now turn to the reassessment of long-dismissed works. Three groups of objects are here re-evaluated and found to be genuine works of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. New information gleaned from radiocarbon analysis, studies of polychromy and heraldic research bolsters stylistic analysis to reincorporate these works into the canon of Gothic ivories.

Meaningful Spectacles: Gothic Ivories Staging the Divine

The problem of acceptably presenting physical vestiges of the divine—relics, images, and the Eucharist—was a preoccupation in France during the thirteenth century. With the specters of idolatry and sacrilege haunting either end of the spectrum, viewers needed adequate visual cues to calibrate their modes of veneration. An examination of Gothic ivories, with their characteristic forms and microarchitectural frames, reveals one strategy devised to alert viewers to the presence of the sacred. Two Old Testament typologies, the Ark of the Covenant and the throne of Solomon, furnished a tripartite visual metaphor to prompt proper adoration of the divine.

Compilatio in Ivory: The Composite Casket in the Metropolitan Museum

Eight complete French Gothic ivory caskets, known as the composite caskets, feature scenes from medieval courtly literature. Perhaps because of the high quality of their workmanship and the richness of their iconography, scholars have paid special attention to this group of ivories, probably made in Paris between 1330 and 1350 in a single workshop or cluster of related workshops. While some scholars believe that the boxes display a random selection of literary motifs, others argue that they feature unified programs, though they disagree about their meaning(s). Almost all who have studied the composite caskets assume that they faithfully reproduce in visual form verbal texts (stories that circulated in either the spoken or written word). This article takes a different approach to the caskets' imagery by considering the carvings on the example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as visual stories. When examined in the context of late medieval literary practices, the box's incised tales reveal themselves unique interpretations of the stories they tell and, as such, offer contemporary responses to Old French literature. The casket's form and presentation of a unified theme associate the tales with the medieval tradition of compilatio, compilations of related stories. Taken together, the carved stories express a medieval survey of the subject of love.

Courting, Harlotry and the Art of Gothic Ivory Carving

The iconographer's search for significance in late medieval amatory imagery is often over before it begins. Faced with the knowledge that--from the theological standpoint of the Middle Ages--true Meaning transcended the sensory realm to which both early love and artistic representation belonged, the interpreter may be left wondering what, if anything meaningful, is to be gained by considering art. What may be gained from a consideration of the art of Gothic ivory carving is an appreciation of its lively discourse on the limits of art, related specifically to the imaginative products of courtly culture. This discourse is fully developed in the ivory carvers' interpretation of the parable of the Prodigal Son, one example of which may be found on a casket in the Metropolitan Museum. Here, in a delightful visual game, the ivory carvers portrayed themselves as courtly artists only to reveal their art as harlotry. Despite its ultimately negative verdict on art, the narrative they constructed depended upon their...

The golden age of ivory: Gothic carvings in North American collections

This long-awaited companion volume to Richard H. Randall, Jr.'s acclaimed Masterpieces of Ivory at the Walters Art Gallery (Hudson Hills Press, 1985) catalogues and reproduces, often in multiple views, every known work in American and Canadian private collections and sixty-one museums (excepting only the separately published Walters and Metropolitan Museum of Art). Gothic ivories spread liberally throughout American museums, varying widely in their quality and in their places of origin, cover the entire history of the subject. Here (reproduced alongside related objects from European collections) are 245 religious and secular works: major independent sculptures, domestic altar-pieces, marriage caskets, combs, mirror backs, chessmen, and much more. They represent the pinnacle of the carver's art from thirteenth - through fifteenth-century France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Flanders, and England, presenting a comprehensive view of the daily lives of the men and women of a variety of social classes as well as the complex artistic interrelationships of the late medieval world. This important book, which includes essays on The Collecting of Gothic Ivories in and Attributing Gothic Ivories, sets new standards of connoisseurship and scholarship. It is the result of a fourteen-year study, undertaken by Randall and his colleagues in charge of ivory collections at the world's leading museums, to reassess every object in the major collections of Europe and America in terms of design source (especially sculptural models), find site, iconography, trade patterns, archives, provenance, and inscriptions. As Randall demonstrates, there was not a single country in Europe that wasnot creating ivory sculpture, nor a royal treasure or cathedral sacristy without its supply of fashionable ivory products.

Medieval Ivories in the Romance Tradition

A group of nine French Gothic ivories are carved with scenes of lovers, trysts, wildmen, and gallant actions. They share an unusual type of landscape setting for the scenes, with the ground plane seen at a steep pitch so that the horizon line is near the top of the scene. A similar approach to landscape can be found in romance manuscripts of the middle years of the fourteenth century, such as the Guillaume de Machaut Remède de Fortune in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. The romantic subject matter of the manuscripts and the ivories are related, and many of the costume details of the manuscripts appear in the ivories. It would appear that the ivories were produced to appeal to a public familiar with the traditions of romance manuscripts. One of the scenes on an ivory, that of a hermit reading before his cell, is almost identical to one in the sketchbook of the artist Jacques Daliwe, indicating a possible connection between carvers and illuminators. The workshop that produced these stylish ivories can be dated between 1340 and 1360, and placed either in Paris or northern France.

A French Gothic Ivory of the Virgin and Child

A French Gothic Ivory of the Virgin and Child

Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries. By Joseph Natanson.

<i>Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries</i>. By Joseph Natanson.

Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries. By Joseph Natanson. Pp. 40 + 64 pls. London: Tiranti. 7s. 6d.

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A Group of Gothic Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery

The ivories selected for treatment in this article, out of the wealth of Gothic ivory-carving contained in the Walters collection, have in common a peculiar treatment of the Crucifixions represented upon them, in that the breast of the Virgin, swooning in the arms of one or more of the Holy Women beside the Cross, is pierced by a sword, or (in four of the six examples) by a jet of blood that issues from the lance-wound in the side of the Crucified. The series, with the exception of the last in the list, consists of pieces which are customarily and somewhat hurriedly catalogued in all museums as “French—XIV Century,” and one of them (no. 3) was actually so classified by inclusion in Koechlin's great corpus of “French” Gothic Ivories.1

A Group of Gothic Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery

A Group of Gothic Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery