panel;
forgery
- Museum number
- 1856,0623.44
- Description
-
Panel; ivory; carved; openwork; three rows of two compartments depicting scenes of life of Virgin, each with triple-arched canopy; top: Annunciation, Nativity; middle: Adoration of Magi, Presentation in Temple; bottom: Death and Coronation of Virgin; each compartment has three arched canopy; fake.
- Production date
- 18thC-19thC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 17.90 centimetres
-
Length: 9 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Jones 1990
Openwork ivory leaf with scenes of the Infancy of Christ, the Dormition and Coronation of the Virgin
Format and iconography are based on thirteenth-century plaques of the so-called 'Soissons diptych group', but here anachronisms of detail and costume proliferate: the heads are over-characterised, and details of architecture and furniture too elaborate for the thirteenth century. Not only is this forger less accomplished than the carver of registration no. 1918,0504.4, but his medieval sources are chronologically earlier. Leeuwenberg called him 'the Master of the Bearded Men Forgeries'. It may be noted that the plaque has never had a function; there are no traces of hinges, and supporting strips of ivory are glued all round the back of the frame, a technique without medieval parallel.
Associated dates : 14th-15thC.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Damaged; dove in Annunciation broken away.
- Acquisition date
- 1856
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1856,0623.44
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 105 (Maskell)