Saturday, January 7, 2017

Small Ivory Statues

Matthias Steinl (Austria)
Triton statuette on pedestal 
ca. 1685-95
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is home to many small ivory statues. This type of European table-top sculpture does not display to particular advantage in modern museums. The small scale of these representations  and their inevitable sequestration behind reflective Plexiglas  combine to create conditions that obscure their potential impact and render them visually insignificant. The tactile element that played such a large part in the enjoyment of early owners is wholly absent from any contemporary presentation. Yet photography, oddly enough, operates also in a contrary direction, isolating each object, highlighting details, and encouraging contemplation.

"The immediate instruments are two: the motionless camera and the printed word. The governing instrument  which is also one of the centers of the subject  is individual, anti-authoritative human consciousness."

 from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans, 1941

Anonymous (Genoa)
Venus and Cupid
ca. 1700-1750
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Johann Leonhard Bauer (Germany)
Statuette of Standing youth
1710
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum

Leonhard Kern (Germany)
Cain and Abel
ca. 1620-45
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

David Le Marchand (France)
Time and Opportunity with Penitence
ca. 1700-1720
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous (France)
Knife and Fork
ca. 1750
ivory mythological figures as handles
copper-alloy bodies
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous (Germany)
St Martin and the Beggar
ca. 1320
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Master of the Furies (Austria)
Statuette of Adam
ca. 1610
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous (France)
Statuette of a Pope
ca. 1230-50
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

attributed to Joachim Henne (Germany)
Death as a Drummer
ca. 1670-80
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Simon Troger (Germany)
The Judgment of Solomon
ca. 1741
ivory, walnut, metal
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous (France)
Virgin supported by three Marys & St John
from lost Crucifixion group 
ca. 1450-70
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous (France)
Two Marys at the Sepulchre
ca. 1320
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

attributed to Giovanni Pisano (Pisa)
Crucified Christ
ca. 1290-1310
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

I am grateful to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London for the excellent reproductions.