gothicivoriesconferenceabstracts 23 24march2012 london

Gothic Ivory Sculpture: Old Questions, New Directions, 23-24 March 2012. Page 1

Gothic Ivory Sculpture: Old Questions, New Directions

23-24 March 2012

Victoria & Albert Museum The Courtauld Institute of Art

Abstracts (by author, in alphabetical order)

Elisabeth Antoine and Juliette Lvy-Hinstin, Muse du Louvre, Paris

Reflections on the Question of Parisian Ivory Retables in the first half of the Fourteenth

Century

In September 2011, the Louvre was able to acquire the figure of Christ at the Column from the

Martin Le Roy Collection. This remarkable appliqu figure had not been known for a century

except in photographs. The two speakers propose to undertake a material study of the work

(technique, polychromy), using it as a point of departure for the question of ivory reliefs of the first

half of the fourteenth century designed for placement on retables, intending to bring Koechlins

pioneering work on this subject up to date.

Peter Barnet, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Metropolitan Museums Ivory Panel with a Stag Hunt: the lost Acadmie ivory box and

its only surviving fragment

In 2003, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a large panel carved with scenes of a stag hunt

from the princely Oettingen-Wallerstein collection in Germany. The panel, which originally served

as the back of an ivory box, had been known since the middle of the eighteenth century, when it

was in the collection of Claude Gros de Boze, Secretary of the Acadmie des Inscriptions et

Belles Lettres in Paris. Although the other panels have been lost, the entire box was featured with

detailed engravings in 1745 in the Mmoires of the Acadmie. Consistent with Raymond

Koechlins group of composite boxes of the fourteenth century, the lost panels depicted the

severed head of the white stag presented to a crowned lady on the ramparts of a castle on one

side; Gawain on the Perilous Bed on the other; remarkable scenes of Wild Men on the front; and

a tournament on the lid. In addition to focusing on the Metropolitans carving and its original

context, this paper will consider related works in ivory and other media as well as literature.

mile Van Binnebeke and Vincent Cattersel, Muses Royaux dArt et dHistoire/Koninklijke

Musea voor Kunst und Geschiednis and KIK/IRPA, Brussels

A Closer Look at the Gothic Ivories in Brussels

Researching Gothic ivory carving within the context of the Brussels collection has meant

venturing on what was virtually terra incognita, as no serious art-historical study had focused on


these artefacts since 1902. In 2010, the KMKG launched a campaign of scientific examination of

its Gothic ivory collection, including early sixteenth-century pieces (the seventeenth century and

more recent ivories remain to be studied). As a privileged partner, KIK-IRPA conducted extensive

technical research on two polychrome Gothic ivories in the collection. This fruitful collaboration,

which included the analysis of the polychromy, has produced essential information regarding the

origin, the dating and the use of these precious objects. The findings bring new elements to a

growing written corpus of technical data concerning late Gothic polychrome painting on ivory.

This paper will deal with a variety of sculptures from the ivory collection of the KMKG and will

focus especially on the two key objects: a Virgin and Child, dated 1301-1350 (inv. n 3139), and a

diptych dated to the mid-fourteenth century (inv. n 854).

Paula Mae Carns, Illinois University, Urbana-Champaign

La Folie Tristan on Two Gothic Ivories

Only two French Gothic ivories depict the twelfth-century Old French tale La Folie Tristan. A

fourteenth-century box in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg recounts the story in three

scenes on the front panel; adjacent is the Tristan image of the Tryst Beneath the Tree; filling the

other panels are generic courtly motifs. A newly discovered casket in the Muse National du

Moyen Age, Thermes de Cluny, Paris exhibits a single event from the tale on a side panel; next to

it is the Tryst; events from medieval imaginative literature adorn the remaining plaques. In this

paper, I will analyse the boxes visual interpretations of La Folie Tristan by comparing them to

texts in surviving manuscripts, shed light on the connections between the Folie and Tryst scenes,

explore the role of the Tristan imagery in the boxes visual programs and postulate a possible

relationship between the two boxes. I will argue that the Folie Tristan iconography dominates the

Hermitage boxes visual ensemble and, through various devices, transforms the apparently

generic compositions into Tristan motifs. The Folie Tristan plays a less central role on the Cluny

box, being just one of many stories depicted, yet it introduces new themes as well as highlights

existing ones.

Benedetta Chiesi, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

Re-assessment of the Leeuwenberg Group at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello

Notwithstanding the recent advancement of research on Gothic ivory carving, there have been

little specific studies on late fourteenth-century ivories. In 1969 Laap Leeuwenberg published a

well-known article where he condemned as fakes over fifty ivories. All these pieces had been

previously thought to be French and from the second half of the fourteenth century. Although the

validity of Leeuwenbergs method was questioned by Danielle Gaborit-Chopin. one year later, his

article still remains the only recent study of most of these pieces. Among them is a group of

ivories belonging to the Carrand collection in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, focus


of my recent Ph.D. thesis. In this paper, I will use stylistic comparisons with other carvings in ivory

as well as works in other media to argue that the Annunciation group from this collection (inv. 93

C) and a similar group now in Langres cannot be modern, nor Italian, as was recently suggested

for the Langres ivory. Similarly, the close examination of three pierced ivory panels in the Bargello

(inv. 118 C, 119 C, 124 C) will enable us to reconsider both their style and their date, and lead us

to propose a likely alternative to Leeuwenbergs categorical judgement.

Glyn Davies, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London

this elegant little chest is remarkably good: the ivory collecting of Francis Douce

(1757-1834)

The antiquarian Francis Douce was one of the earliest and most important English collectors of

Gothic ivories. The majority of his collection is now housed at the British Museum, although

examples survive in a number of other museums. The collection is primarily known through the

account of it published by its second owner, Samuel Rush Meyrick. However, the Doucean

archives at the Bodleian Library contain numerous earlier references to Douces ivories. This

paper seeks to use this hitherto-unknown archival material to shed light on Douces collecting of

Gothic ivories, discussing from whom he bought such works and when, as well as seeking to

shed light on his motivations for acquiring such works, and the place they held within his wider

collecting activities. In the process, the provenance and histories of a number of important ivories

will be extended farther back than has previously been possible, and the role of a number of book

dealers in making Gothic ivories available to the market will be highlighted.

Xavier Dectot, Louvre Lens, Lens

Reflections on a group of caskets with romance scenes

The Muse de Cluny recently bought a casket with romance scenes, unknown to

Koechlin (Cl. 23840), which sheds new light on a larger group of ivory caskets with scenes taken

from various romances, both Arthurian and ancient, as well as other sources such as exempla.

Interestingly, the caskets seem to have been produced over the course of more than a quarter of

a century by various workshops, but nevertheless all have a similar structure.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to assess the sources of these caskets iconography

and to try, as much as possible, to establish potential filiations between the various caskets of the

group by examining both similarities and discrepancies between their iconograpies and structure.

Secondly, I will focus on the interesting variations of the representations of the Attack of the

Castle of Love which can be found on the lids of these caskets. The paper will conclude by

underlining the reasons for the relative success, over the years, of this surprising formula, and the

evidence which can be gathered on the reception of such objects.


Danielle Gaborit-Chopin

Documents and works of Art: notes about French gothic ivories

The confrontation between documents and French gothic ivories often creates problems of

understanding and interpretation. For example, studies on the Livre des metiers, the statutes of

the Parisian corporations written by Etienne Boileau circa 1260, could be reconsidered: as far as

works in ivory are concerned, in the light of other documents from the end of the thirteenth and

the fourteenth century (such as the Rles de la taille, inventories of treasures and books of

accounts for kings and princes), as well as the fact that that the word yvoirier appears only in

1322, the Livre des metiers seems to represent a utopian view. It was amended and rewritten

by several statutes, sometimes only for one corporation, proof that these rules were not really

respected and that they did not reflect the reality. It is therefore possible to conclude that most of

the gothic ivories surviving today (religious and secular), were made by the ymagiers tailleurs

(sculptors) and the paintres and ymagiers (painters and sculptors), the two corporations

becoming one single corporation in 1391. And the idea, still defended today by some art

historians, that the ivory works are related to the Minor Arts , while sculpture and painting are

Major Arts is incorrect for that period.

Without documents, the provenance of an ivory cannot be proved. But rare and sometimes

disturbing are the documents giving a date and an origin for Parisian ivories: it is possible to put

in connection the Virgin of Zwettl, in Austria, bought by the abbot Bohuslaw (before 1248?) but

disfigured, and the little figures set around her, with the polyptych of Trani, which must be

rehabilitated. We can today assert that the Virgin of the Sainte-Chapelle (Louvre) is the one

mentioned in the first inventory of the church, circa 1279, and the chronology proposed by

Koechlin in his corpus (1924), chronology of which we are still dependant, is incorrect. In an

inventory of the pontifical treasury written in 1311, the description of a triptych that could be the

triptych of Saint-Sulpice-du-Tarn, puts before that date this ivory and the works stylistically

associated with it. The same conclusion is possible for the tiny diptych (Ascension and Pentecost)

in the Louvre, mentioned in the 1380 inventory of the treasury of King Charles V.

Finally, a group of ivories, with diptychs, tabernacles, statuettes and a secular casket, stylistically

linked (circa 1320-1340?), shows that it is a mistake to distribute Parisian gothic ivories between

workshops characterised by the typology of their productions, as suggested by commentaries on

the Livre des metiers. Documents asserting that the crozier of Metz cathedral was made before

1316 call into question the dating of this group, and also the accepted chronology of ivories in the

first third of the fourteenth century.


Sarah M. Gurin, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

New Pygmalions: Ivory Sculptors of the Thirteenth Century

Jean de Meung, in rewriting the ovidian Pygmalion myth for the penultimate chapter of the

Roman de la Rose in the 1270s, included a description of the medieval sculptors craft. The

heterogeneous list of media he gives, including wood and stone, echoes the variety of media

tienne de Boileau legislated the contemporary ymagiers to use in the Parisian guild documents

of the 1260s. Yet when Pygmalion wished to prove his genius and carve a truly remarkable and

beautiful image, he turned to the material of ivory: Por son grant engin esprouver... si fist une

ymage divuire. As a contemporary witness, Jean de Meungs text animates our understanding of

thirteenth-century ivory carving: not one medium among many, as Etienne de Boileau suggested,

but instead an outlet for the highest artistic expression. In what ways did master ymagiers prove

their great genius and what were the hallmarks of superb Gothic craftsmanship? Close analysis

of a group of statuettes by one carver will reveal not only the techniques deployed, but will

meditate on the impact of using these skills, not to create an idol to be lusted after as Pygmalion

did, but to fashion a captivating image of the Mother of God.

Andrea von Hlsen-Esch, Heinrich Heine Universitt, Dsseldorf

Fourteenth-century ivory carving in the Rhineland questions of style, centres of

production, and commissions

Ivory production in the Rhineland has been treated in several articles, and more and more objects

seem to pop up during exhibitions. This paper gives an overview of the questions involved: which

centres of production can be identified or have been identified before now? Is there a typical

Rhenish style, and how can it be described or defined? Given the fact that Cologne was until the

15th century one of the major trading transfer sites on the Rhine, and also a very important

ecclesiastical centre (with major building projects) within Germany, one should ask if there was

any exchange with the Parisian centre of ivory production and how Germans could obtain these

ivories. Due to a lack of available ivory in the twelfth century, Cologne became a centre of bone

carving, but it seems to have switched back easily to ivory when the raw material again became

available where was it imported from? Considering the political and commercial significance of

Cologne it should be asked, is there any evidence for the emergence of a lay market? And to

what extent did the two religious orders playing a significant role in the Rhineland during the 14th

century, the Dominicans and Franciscans, order devotional objects made of ivory? More and

more ivories can be attributed to their commission due to iconographical reasons; this may lead

to the question as to whether the Orders (their female convents included) could have been a

means of circulation for devotional objects made of ivory along the river Rhine.


Annie Kemkaran-Smith, The Wernher Collection at Rangers House, London

The Wernher Ivories: Life in a Victorian Private Collection

Julius Wernher amassed his fine and decorative art collection between 1880 and 1910. The

collection includes bronzes, paintings, woodcarvings, ceramics, textiles and medieval ivories, and

is now displayed at Rangers House. This paper will discuss the ivories in the Wernher Collection

in the context of the collection as a whole and look at the ethos behind Wernhers ivory collecting

habits. It will discuss those pieces whose authenticity has been called into question in recent

years and ask whether fakes and forgeries are more prevalent in the ivory collection in

comparison to the rest of the Wernher Collection. The comparison will continue by looking at the

subject matter of the ivories and looking at which recurring themes appear both in the ivories and

throughout the rest of the collection. This paper will also look at the placement and display of the

ivories within the Wernher collection, and how prominent a place they took in comparison to other

media. The paper will conclude by looking briefly at ivories that have exited the Wernher

Collection over the last century and making a basic comparison between the Wernher ivories and

other collections once in private ownership.

Christine Kowalski and Harold Wolter von dem Knesebeck, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms

Universitt Bonn

Polychromy, Provenance and Preservation of German Ivories

Since the analysis of Juliette Lvy and Agns Cascio in the 1990s, the aspects of polychromy,

provenance and preservation of medieval ivories, in particular the German examples, have only

been investigated by Andrea Whning of the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe. The

Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms-Universitt and the LVR-Landesmuseum at Bonn are therefore

initiating a new project in which several questions concerning German (Rhenish) ivories shall be

answered. The main aim of the project is first to develop a non-destructive portable method to

analyse pigments on ivory. Second, one of the most interesting questions is to try and establish

whether there are certain concepts of polychromy in the Rhenish area of Germany. Third, the

project will design guidelines for museums on how to deal with these fragile objects which are at

present sleeping in several museums without being shown to the public. This paper will point out

the main aspects of the new project, with examples of medieval objects from the LVR

Landesmuseum Bonn. For several years, both Institutes have been researching and lecturing on

medieval sculptures, for example in 2010 a conference dealing with the materiality of medieval

sculpture, or the recent exhibition Schne Madonnen am Rhein.


Adam Harris Levine, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Assembling Composite Ivory Carvings in Gothic France

Scholars of gothic ivory carvings have long wrestled with the problems of the Livre des mtiers, a

compilation of Parisian guild regulations issued in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. While

the text offers insight into the workshop practices of some seven guilds working with ivory in Paris

at that time, the ivory products mentioned are in many cases inconsistent with the corpus of

gothic ivory carvings that survive in museum collections today. Ivories of diverse form, function,

and facture were produced in medieval Paris, and it remains difficult to pair the extant sculpture

with their carvers guild and guild regulations. Further complicating the matter is a small but

significant group of ivories that postdate the proclamation of the guild regulations yet appear to

defy them. The production of composite carvingsresourceful assemblages of multiple ivory

fragments to make a wholewas forbidden in the Livre, yet a number of examples survive. The

study of this corpus of sculpture necessarily brings another group of objects into consideration:

extant wood carvings from Paris of the same period carved by members of the same guilds, if not

by the same hands.

Each of these composite sculptures call into question the degree to which the regulations were

followed, just as the regulations present interesting possibilities for situating the ivories in

reconstructed notions of taste and quality in the fourteenth century. This paper explores

techniques and practices employed by fourteenth-century carvers, with the hope of shedding new

light on the complicated relationship between their extant products and the regulations that

dictated their production.

Charles T. Little, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Art of Gothic ivories: studies at the crossroads

The last decades have produced a plethora of studies on Gothic ivories of the high middle ages

and beyond. Looking at three areas that are symptomatic of some of the issues of ivories -

whether localization, authentication or meaning - I will focus on some monumental ivory

sculptures of the Virgin and Child, a diptych with heraldic devices, and the conundrum of neo-

Gothic ivories.

Marcello Mignozzi, Universit degli Studi di Bari, Bari

The Ivory Altarpiece of Trani: French art in Angevin Apulia

According to tradition, an ivory altarpiece was offered to the clergy of Trani by Charles I of Anjou

after the death of his son, the young Prince Philip I (1256-1277). With this donation, Charles

wanted to thank the most important representatives of the clergy for having allowed him to bury

his son in the Cathedral. The altarpiece is the symbol of the kings power, a spiritual but also

political tribute. It has recently returned to Apulia after having been in the Istituto Centrale per il


Restauro in Rome for a number of years; it is now in the Museo Diocesano in Trani. Many

difficulties arise from the study of this single artefact. Notably, there is an almost complete lack of

specific bibliography. Furthermore, the artefact itself is absolutely without parallel. The

uniqueness of the altarpiece lies in its use of two materials: ebony and ivory. In artefacts of a

similar type, these materials can be found together only from the end of the fourteenth century,

much later than the period in which the altarpiece was constructed.

Tradition and stylistic analysis both suggest that the altarpiece dates to the thirteenth century. Its

unusual qualities can be explained by the various restorations that it seems to have undergone,

giving it a hybrid aspect. Some pictures show that ivory parts had already been placed incorrectly

during previous restorations; even the most recent, however, was not better. For this reason we

have virtually built the scenes of the side doors (the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the

Adoration of the Magi and the Presentation of Christ in the temple) by comparing this altarpiece

with other similar ivory artefacts dating to the first half of the XIV century.

Easily portable, this altarpiece was a vehicle of culture, a model of stylistic features and

iconographies from France. What was original affected local taste: this is the case for the Virgin in

the round, having the elegant and gracious taste of the city of Gothic Art. The analysis of an

Angevin document dating to 1277, referring to the death of Prince Philip creates a new basis for

future discussions, since it demonstrates that the surviving altarpiece really is the one that

tradition recognizes as Philips.

Ebbe Nyborg, Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen

The Beginnings of Gothic Ivory Sculpture. Recent Discoveries within a group of Danish

Ivories

The paper will present two exquisite ivories, the Herlufsholm crucifix figure and an Epiphany in

the National Museum of Copenhagen, and produce new evidence that they resulted from close

Franco-Danish connections, notably in the persons of archbishops Absalon (died 1201) and

Anders Sunesen (died 1228) of Lund. This evidence supports the idea that these ivories were not

imports (from France or England), but were carved in a French workshop within Denmark. Indeed

it has been established (based on written evidence) that the Epiphany in fact belonged to Anders

Sunesen and should be dated no later than 1220. Also the two mentioned ivories, thought to be

by the same hand, have such close ties with the polychrome wooden sculpture of Eastern

Denmark that one has to surmise the existence of a large workshop, working both in ivory and

polychrome wood, and able to take up ambitious commissions, such as the (mostly lost)

crucifixion group of Roskilde Cathedral. This whole prospect of early gothic French ivory-carvers

working at the entrance to the Baltic is of particular interest, since comparable artworks are now

almost completely lost in France as well as in England.


Dr Mark Redknap, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, Cardiff

Gothic Ivories from Medieval Wales: Contexts & Afterlives

Gothic ivories are known from a number of religious and secular sites in Wales, though they are

relatively unknown beyond Offas Dyke. This paper presents the small corpus, and reviews the

archaeological evidence for their findspots. These include a diptych from Valle Crucis Abbey, a

decorative Presentation at the Temple plaque found during excavations at Dolforwyn Castle, and

a plaque discovered at Basingwerk Abbey. The afterlife of a recently married pair of diptych

leaves in the collections of National Museums Liverpool and Amgueddfa Cymru National

Museum Wales will also be explored.

Julia Saviello, Humboldt University, Berlin

Late Medieval Ivory Combs as Instruments of Order

Secular ivory combs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are impressive due to their figural

decorations. The intricacy of their carving as well as the good state of preservation of most of the

examples known today refutes their interpretation as functional objects for hair care and styling.

Rather, it seems they were used for representative and instructive purposes: as appropriate gifts,

which a woman was allowed to accept from her lover, they were subject to the rules of courtly

love. At the same time, they were part of a complex system of moral admonition against the

power of seduction attributed to female hair. This presentation will focus on the figurative carvings

on the centre spine of these objects, depicting scenes of courtly love, biblical or mythological

narratives which can shed light on the different contexts and discourses related to secular ivory

combs. To analyse them, I will not only consider contemporary conventions regarding hair, but

also the ambivalent symbolism of combing transmitted in literary sources and works of art at the

time.

Naomi Speakman, The British Museum, London

The Battle of the Sexes: Gender Politics in the Legends of Aristotle and Virgil

There exist two fourteenth-century ivory writing tablets in the collections of the British Museum

and the Walters Art Gallery which display surprisingly explicit tableaux of the classical stories of

Aristotle and Virgil. These tablets have been discussed in tandem by Richard Randall and

brought together by the Courtaulds Gothic Ivory Project, but a detailed analysis is yet to be

undertaken. The carvings depict Virgil in the hanging basket and Aristotle as he is seduced by

Campaspe (or Phyllis). This paper will compare and contrast these two tablets and explore them

within the wider context of the depiction of the Virgil and Aristotelian legends in medieval art.

Whilst the representation of an aged Aristotle ridden by Campaspe is seen in numerous

contemporary representations, the scene of Campaspe at the loom paired with Virgils story is

less common. The brutally sexual way in which the princess is treated in the two upper Virgilian


scenes reveals another theme which this paper will explore. This is not merely a humorous battle

of the sexes, but a violent validation of attitudes towards women in the Middle Ages.

Michele Tomasi, Universit de Lausanne

The Master of Kremsmnster: style, function and production

The Master of Kremsmnster is a typical example of the problems and state of research in the

field of Gothic ivories. The group of objects attributed to the Master is justly considered by

specialists one of the most important of the late 14th century. However, there is no agreement as

to the attribution of these pieces to Paris or Germany, nor on problems concerning the internal

coherence of the group. The wide dispersal of the single ivories attributed to the Master or

workshop makes it difficult to propose a satisfying answer to these questions. Scholars of French

and German monumental sculpture largely ignore these issues.

This paper aims to tackle some of these problems. The paper deals with questions of style from

three viewpoints: firstly, is it possible to localize firmly the group? An attribution to Cologne will be

argued here; secondly, what could stylistic differences between the delicate statuettes and

vehemently expressive reliefs tell us about the relationships between style and iconography and

about the perception and use of these objects?; thirdly, is it possible, through stylistic and

comparative analysis, to make any hypothesis about the production (a small workshop? Or a

master and a few imitators?).

Matthias Weniger, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich

Towards a re-evaluation of the Gothic ivories at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum

The Bayerisches Nationalmuseum owns about 50 ivory works from the Gothic period or in a

Gothic style, among them a few outstanding pieces. Over half of these works have been for more

than 150 years in public hands, coming from royal, private, and church collections. Most of the

ivories have been thoroughly analysed by Rudolf Berliner in his excellent 1924 catalogue, and

dealt with in several other publications. However, the preparations for an exhibition held in 2010,

as well as those for the Corpus of Medieval Ivories have shown that the original purpose of some

of these works, the localisation of the workshops responsible for them, and even the very

authenticity of several pieces deserve to be reconsidered in the light of more recent research on

the creation of Gothic ivories. This contribution will hopefully stir a lively debate on some of the

questions raised by the Munich ivories.