Lot n° 28
Estimation :
8000 - 10000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 53 300EUR
Rare ivory group carved in bas-relief with... - Lot 28 - Pierre Bergé & Associés
Rare ivory group carved in bas-relief with slight traces of polychromy representing the Passover of the Virgin. In the center, the fainting Virgin is supported by St. John behind her who looks up to the right; two holy women are next to her, their hands joined or crossed on their chest; three figures dominate the composition, a man with a bearded face wearing a cap and carrying a spear, St. Longin? Behind him, a Jewish priest recognizable by his pointed hat and, on the right, a soldier in armour, with a laurel head and holding a badelaire in his left hand.
Franco-Burgundian, circa 1400/1420
Height: 16,5 cm - Width: 9,7 cm - Thickness: 1,6 cm - Weight: 260 g (small lacks, crack)
Provenance: Former private collection, Nantes
This beautiful and rare group is to be compared with a corpus of ivories, generally of small or even very small size, often polychromed, which we situate according to the notes of the catalogues, either in Paris, or in Burgundy, or in the southern Netherlands or those of the north, more precisely in Utrecht, or still in the north of France. This production is also limited in time, from 1400 to 1450 approximately, and thus follows the abundant activity of the ivory workshops under the reign of Charles V. The quality of the workmanship can be uneven, often indicating a rapidity of execution. Although medallions or plaques, sometimes with openwork, can be found in most of the major museums, these works generally do not exceed a few centimetres in size. This is the case of a Descent from the Cross in Paris, circa 1400-1410, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, whose iconography is not far removed from this Passover (inv. no. 605-1902, fig.a). Among the actors in the scene, we can also observe figures with pointed hats, another with a cap with a reclining tip and the enigmatic soldier in armour with a laurel head.
Here, we are in the presence of a group of a completely different proportion, a coherent subject, part of a large Crucifixion, as a counterpart to another group, placed on the other side of the cross, which is probably made up of onlookers, such as can be seen on Flemish altarpieces. Only two other ivories can be related to this group of the Passover found in a Nantes estate, each also constituting an element of a larger subject: an Angel of the Annunciation in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (inv.no. 2920, fig.b) and a Virgin of a Nativity in the British Museum (inv. no. 1856,0623.41, fig.c); the Angel is 11.4 cm x 5.5 cm and the Virgin 14.7 cm x 7 cm. These three ivories were most likely made in the same workshop. The nimbus bordered with pearls, a similar representation of the hair on the Angel
Gabriel and the Saint John of the Paleolith, and a similar treatment of Mary's head with its full cheeks, small, slightly upturned nose and heavy chin are particularly noteworthy. There is also a research in the drapery with a tight succession of folds or falls marked by a certain suppleness and heaviness. However, there is a stiffness in the workmanship of the group, which is free of the other two.
Several details allow us to place the production of this Passover in the first decades of the 15th century, a period confirmed by the results of the C14 analysis carried out on the material.
The headgear of the spear bearer, a kind of cap with the end folded down, refers to the fashion of the beginning of this century as shown by the character of the tapestry of the Offering of the Heart preserved in the Louvre Museum, dated to the years 1400-1410 (fig.d); this is also the hairstyle often worn by figures contemporary with John the Fearless in miniatures, as well as by prophets in representations of the period, such as those who supported the hunt in the abbey of Saint Germain-des-Près (Cleveland Museum, inv.64.360, fig.e) or those attributed to the Master of the Hakendover altarpiece, which can be seen in the Brussels City Museum, from the years 1401 and 1402 (fig.f).
Art historians have great difficulty in locating with certainty the workshop, or workshops, from which these early fifteenth-century ivories originated. Danièle Gaborit-Chopin, an eminent specialist in medieval ivories, concludes that there was a "Parisian or Franco-Burgundian nucleus, around 1400", in the chapter devoted to this production in the catalogue Paris 1400. It seems that this beautiful Pâmoison supports the latter hypothesis, as certain details are reminiscent of the art of Claus de Werve, in the service of the Dukes of Burgundy: the harshness of the features of the men's faces with their square jaws
- the face of the man in the bonnet is thus characteristic - and the use of drapery to conceal the hands, a recurrent feature in Burgundian art, such as John's right hand supporting one of the arms of the Virgin, which is invisible under the veil.
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