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| Roman ivory The Symmachi Panel late 4th-early 5th century diptych-leaf Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
"A priestess or initiate, her head bound with ivy (the plant of Bacchus) standing beneath an oak tree (sacred to Jupiter) takes some corns of incense to sprinkle on the fire of an altar. A boy (or possibly a girl?) behind the altar holds a wine jar and a bowl of fruit or nuts and a two-handled vase, or Cantharus. The top of the panel bears the name 'Symmachorum'. The damaged border is of delicately carved anthemion ornament."
This panel, made for the noble Roman family of the Symmachi, was originally paired with a matching panel (now in Paris) inscribed for the Nicomachi family. These rare late panels, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum, ". . . provide material evidence of the dying gasp of paganism in aristocratic Late Antique Roman society around the end of the 4th century and beginning of the 5th. Ironically, both panels probably owe their survival to having been incorporated into an early 13th-century reliquary shrine at the abbey of Montier-en-Der in France, where they remained until the French Revolution. The shrine was then broken up, but the ivories escaped destruction and resurfaced just after the middle of the 19th century."
"Because of its excellent condition – in contrast to the sadly damaged Nicomachi panel – the Symmachi leaf is one of the most important existing ivory carvings from the Late Antique period. Only a handful of ivory reliefs from this period survives, but from this small sample it is clear that the carvers worked for both pagan and Christian patrons simultaneously."
– curator's notes from the Victoria & Albert Museum
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| François Duquesnoy (Flanders / Rome) Bacchanalian infants playing with a Satyr ca. 1650-70 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| François Duquesnoy (Flanders / Rome) Bacchanalian infants playing Music ca. 1650-70 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| François Duquesnoy (Flanders / Rome) Bacchanalian infants playing with a Donkey ca. 1650-70 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Ignaz Elhafen (Germany) Childhood of Jupiter ca. 1697-1710 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Ignaz Elhafen (Germany) Death of Cleopatra ca. 1697-1715 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Jakob Auer (Austria) Judgment of Paris ca. 1675-80 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Anonymous (Germany) St George and the Dragon ca. 1700-1710 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| The Salting Diptych (England) Virgin and Christ ca. 1310-20 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
"This diptych [above and below] named after the person who donated it to the Museum (George Salting), is one of the comparatively rare Gothic ivories to be unequivocally accepted as English (probably Westminster). Thicker than any existing French ivory relief – each leaf measure 2.6 cm in depth – the style of the figures of Christ and of the Virgin and Child has traditionally been associated with late 13th and early 14th century work at Westminster and with the Eleanor Crosses erected in the early 1290s to commemorate the death of Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I. . . . The use of the ogee arch and the unusual, monumental form of the individual figures – as opposed to the smaller and more crowded scenes from the Gospels found on French ivories – reinforce the idea that this was produced in England, probably in a court workshop. In effect, the figures have the appearance of small free-standing statues enclosed within niches, or of three-dimensional Northern versions of the full-length figures found in Italian 14th-century painted predella panels."
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| The Salting Diptych (England) Figure of Christ (detail) ca. 1310-20 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| attributed to Giovanni Pisano (Italy) Crucified Christ ca. 1290-1310 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Anonymous (England) Crucified Christ ca. 1275-1300 ivory Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Adam Lenckhardt (Germany) Lamentation ca. 1630 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Balthasar Permoser (Germany) Entombment ca. 1677-90 ivory relief Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
I am grateful to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London for the excellent reproductions.