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Title: The Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages
Author: Cust, Anna Maria
Language: English
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in the original text.
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_HANDBOOKS OF THE GREAT CRAFTSMEN_.
EDITED BY G. C. WILLIAMSON, LITT.D.
Illustrated Monographs, Biographical and Critical,
on the Great Craftsmen and Workers of
Ancient and Modern Times.
Edited by G. C. WILLIAMSON, Litt.D.
Imperial 16mo, with numerous Illustrations,
5_s._ net each.
_First Volumes of the Series_
THE PAVEMENT MASTERS OF SIENA.
By R. H. HOBART CUST, M.A.
PETER VISCHER.
By CECIL HEADLAM, B.A.
THE IVORY WORKERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
By A. M. CUST.
_Others to follow._
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
[Illustration: DOSSETTER PHOTO.] [BRITISH MUSEUM
1. LEAF OF A DIPTYCH
Byzantine, fifth century
[_See p._ 55.]
THE IVORY WORKERS
OF THE
MIDDLE AGES
BY
A. M. CUST
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1902
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
TO MY DEAR FATHER
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
PREFACE
This little book can do no more than humbly touch the fringe of a
large subject; but if it leads the reader to a further study of this
beautiful craft, it will have amply fulfilled its duty.
I must express my deep obligation to the magnificent volume on ivories
by M. Emile Molinier, whose masterly arrangement of a very fragmentary
and scattered subject is a model of lucidity; and also to Dr. Hans
Graeven, whose scholarly researches and excellent photographs are
indispensable for a real study of the craft.
A. M. CUST.
_December, 1901._
CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii
CHAPTER I.
CONSULAR AND OTHER SECULAR DIPTYCHS 1
CHAPTER II.
LATIN AND BYZANTINE IVORIES 37
I. Latin and Latino-Byzantine and
the Early Byzantine Ivories 37
II. Byzantine Caskets 75
III. The Byzantine Renaissance 84
CHAPTER III.
LOMBARDIC, ANGLO-SAXON, CARLOVINGIAN
AND GERMAN IVORIES 96
I. Lombard Ivory Carvings 96
II. Anglo-Saxon Ivory Carvings 99
III. The Carlovingian Renaissance 106
IV. German Ivory Carving in the time
of the Ottos 118
CHAPTER IV.
ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC IVORIES 129
LIST OF DIPTYCHS 157
LIST OF PLACES WHERE IMPORTANT EXAMPLES
OF IVORIES CAN BE FOUND 165
INDEX 167
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
1. AN ANGEL. Leaf of a Diptych.
Fifth century. Byzantine
_British Museum, London_ _Frontispiece_
2. SECOND LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF PROBIANUS,
VICE-PREFECT OF ROME. End of fourth century
_Berlin Library_ 8
3. FIRST LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF PROBUS,
CONSUL AT ROME, 406 A.D.
_Duomo, Aosta_ 9
4. FIRST LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF ORESTES,
CONSUL AT ROME, 530 A.D.
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 14
5. LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF AMALASUNTHA(?)
Sixth Century. Italian
_Bargello, Florence_ 30
6. ADAM IN THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE, AND SCENES
FROM THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL.
Leaves of a Diptych. Fifth century. Italian
_Bargello, Florence_ 41
7 & 8. TWO PLAQUES, THE CRUCIFIXION
and CHRIST LEAVING THE PRÆTORIUM.
Fifth century. Italian
_British Museum_ 46, 47
9. PYX WITH THE SCENE OF CHRIST HEALING
THE PARALYTIC.
Sixth century. Italo-Byzantine
_Musée de Cluny, Paris_ 51
10. COVER OF A BOOK OF THE GOSPELS
(from S. Michele di Murano). Sixth century.
Italo-Byzantine
_Ravenna Museum_ 53
11. COVER OF A BOOK OF THE GOSPELS, with three
scenes from the Nativity (from Metz Cathedral).
Sixth century. Italo-Byzantine
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris_ 57
12. FRONT OF THE IVORY THRONE OF ST. MAXIMIAN,
with St. John Baptist and the Four Evangelists.
Sixth century. Byzantine
_Duomo, Ravenna_ 59
13. A PANEL FROM THE SAME THRONE, BRINGING JOSEPH’S COAT
TO JACOB. Sixth century. Byzantine
_Duomo, Ravenna_ 63
14. OLIPHANT. Ninth to tenth century.
Oriental Byzantine
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 73
15. VEROLI CASKET. Byzantine
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 77
16. FRONT OF A CASKET, with scenes from the life
of David.
Ninth century. Byzantine
_Museo Kircheriano, Rome_ 81
17. HARBAVILLE TRIPTYCH. Tenth century.
Byzantine _Louvre, Paris_ 87
18. PLAQUE WITH THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
Eleventh century. Byzantine
_Bargello, Florence_ 89
19. CHRIST ENTHRONED.
Eleventh century. Byzantine
_Trivulzio Collection, Milan_ 91
20. CHRIST CROWNING THE EMPEROR ROMANUS AND THE
EMPRESS EUDOXIA.
Eleventh century. Byzantine.
_Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris_ 93
21. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
Eleventh century. Anglo-Saxon
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 101
22. THE XXVIITH PSALM REPRESENTED IN SCENIC FORM.
Ninth century. Carlovingian
_Zürich Museum_ 109
23. COVER OF A BOOK OF THE GOSPELS.
Ninth century. Carlovingian
_Abbey of St. Gall, Switzerland_ 113
24. THE CRUCIFIXION AND ALLEGORICAL FIGURES.
Ninth century. Carlovingian
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 115
25. PANEL OF THE CRUCIFIXION, from a book cover.
Tenth century. German
_John Rylands Library, Manchester_ 123
26. CEREMONIAL COMB. Eleventh century.
English _British Museum, London_ 127
27. A BISHOP’S CROZIER. Fourteenth century.
French _Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 131
28. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.
Thirteenth century. French
_Louvre, Paris_ 137
29. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.
Thirteenth century. French
_Bargello, Florence_ 139
30. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.
Thirteenth century. French
_Louvre, Paris_ 141
31. A POLYPTYCH, with the Virgin and Child
and various scenes from the Nativity.
Fourteenth century. French
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 143
32. FIRST LEAF OF A DIPTYCH.
Fourteenth century. French
_Mayer Coll., Liverpool Museum_ 145
33. PLAQUE FROM A CASKET REPRESENTING DANCERS.
Fourteenth century. French
_Bargello, Florence_ 147
34. A MIRROR CASE, with the Elopement of
Guinivere and Lancelot.
Fourteenth century. French
_Mayer Coll., Liverpool Museum_ 149
35. PANEL FROM A CASKET.
Fourteenth century. French
_Bargello, Florence_ 151
36. TRIPTYCH MADE FOR BISHOP GRANDISON OF EXETER.
1327-1369. English _British Museum, London_ 153
37. TRIPTYCH. Early fifteenth century. Italian
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London_ 155
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Antoniewicz. Romanische Forschungen.
G. Böhne, Leipsic.
Barbier de Montault, Xavier. Le symbolisme du bélier
sur les crosses d’ivoire au moyen âge.
Revue de l’Art Chrétien. 1883, p. 157.
Darcel, Alfred. Collection Basilewsky. Catalogue raisonné.
2 vols. Fol.
Paris, 1874.
Spitzer, Frédéric. La Collection Spitzer. Les Ivoires.
Notice de M. Alf. Darcel.
Paris, 1890.
Garucci. Storia dell’ arte cristiana. Vol. 6.
Prato, 1872-80.
Gatty, Charles T. Catalogue of Mediæval and Later Antiquities
contained in the Mayer Museum.
Gilbert & Walmsley. Liverpool, 1883.
Goodyear, W. H. Roman and Mediæval Art.
Flood & Vincent, Chatauqua Press.
Gori, Ant. Francesco. Thesaurus Veterum Diptychorum Consularium
et Ecclesiasticorum. 3 vols.
Florence, 1759.
Graeven, Hans. “Entstellte Consular Diptychon.” Mitth.
Arch. Instituts. Rom. 1892, p. 204.
“Ein Reliquienkästchen aus Pirano.” Jahrbuch der
Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten
Kaiserhauses, Wien. Vol. XX. 1899.
“Der Wiener-Genesis und byzantinische Elfenbeinwerke.”
Do. Vol. XXI. 1900.
“Antike Vorlagen Byzantinische Elfenbeinreliefs.”
Jahrbuch der K. Preuss. Kunstsammlungen,
XVIII. 3. 1897.
Photographs.
Frühchristliche und mittelalterliche Elfenbeinwerke
in photographischer Nachbildung
“Aus Sammlungen in England.” 1898.
“Aus Sammlungen in Italien.” 1900.
Labarte, Jules. Histoire des Arts Industriels au Moyen Age
et à l’Epoque de la Renaissance.
V^e A. Morel. Paris, 1872.
Maskell, W. Ancient and Mediæval Ivories in the
South Kensington Museum.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1872.
The Introduction is sold separately. Price 1_s._
Meyer, Wilhelm (aus Speyer). Zwei Antike Elfenbeintafeln
der k. Staats-Bibliothek in München.
München, Verlag der K. Akademie. 1879.
Molinier, Emile. Histoire Générale des Arts appliqués
à l’Industrie du V^e à la fin du XVIII^e Siècle.
Vol I. Ivoires.
E. Lévy et C^{ie}. Paris.
Catalogue des Ivoires. Musée national du Louvre.
Paris, 1896.
Oldfield, Edmund. A Catalogue of Specimens of
Ancient Ivory Carvings in various collections.
With Memoir by Sir Digby Wyatt. First edition, 1856.
New edition, without memoir, 1893.
Pulzky, Francis. Catalogue of the Fejéváry Ivories
in the Museum of Joseph Mayer, Esq.
Liverpool, 1856.
Roujon, Molinier et Marcou. Catalogue Illustré Officiel
de l’Exposition Rétrospective de l’Art Français
des Origines à 1800.
Paris, 1900.
Scharf, Sir G. Article on “Sculpture” in Waring’s
Art Treasures of the United Kingdom.
Manchester, 1873.
Schlumberger, G. Un Empereur Byzantin au X^e Siècle.
Nicéphore Phocas.
Paris. Didot. 1890.
L’Epopée Byzantine à la fin du X^e Siècle.
Paris, Hachette et C^{ie}. 1896.
Stuhlfauth, G. Die altchristliche Elfenbeinplastik.
Leipsig, 1896.
Venturi, Adolfo. Un cofano civile bizantino di Cividale.
Gallerie nazionale italiane.
Vol 3. 1897.
Storia dell’ arte italiana. I. Dai primordi dell’ arte
cristiana al tempo di Giustiano.
Hoepli. Milan, 1901.
Vöge, W. Katalog der Berliner Elfenbeinwerke.
(In course of publication.) Berlin, 1900.
“Ein deutscher Schnitzer des X Jahrhunderts.” Jahrbuch
der k. preuss. Kunstsammlungen.
Vol. XX. Berlin, 1899.
Westwood, J. O. A Descriptive Catalogue of the
Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum.
With an Account of the Continental Collections
of Classical and Mediæval Ivories.
Chapman and Hall. London, 1876.
Wilpert, Josef. Un Capitolo della Storia di Vestario.
L’Arte. 1898, 1899.
THE IVORY WORKERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES
CHAPTER I
CONSULAR AND OTHER SECULAR DIPTYCHS
From the earliest dawn of the human race until our time, Ivory has held
a first place as a material for making the pleasing little luxuries of
life, religious or civil. Cave-Man has left behind him incised sketches
of animals, the product of his leisure moments; all literature tells
of the use of it, and the digger’s spade turns up a series of charming
objects, from the ornamental hair combs of a prehistoric princess, who
dazzled the Egyptian court some 7000 years B.C., to the ivory-handled
walking-stick of some gouty old Greek who lived at the outset of this
most prosaic era.
To this passion for carved ivory we owe our knowledge of the continuity
of art for many centuries after the break up of the Roman Empire, and
the almost complete cessation of monumental sculpture. In fact, no
such continuous chain has survived in any other artistic production;
and this alone makes the study of the craft of such intense interest,
illustrating as it does the early quickening of art in a period of
great obscurity between the old order and the new.
There is no real break between Classical art and that of the Middle
Ages; the early Christian was the last phase of Roman art, and the
Church handed on with the Christian religion a mass of Judaic and Latin
culture which the barbarian races, having none of their own, accepted,
but through their different nature and requirements, modified and
debased. Thence we see the continuity, and also the two main causes of
the deterioration of Classical art: first, by the rise of Christianity,
which was in its early days antagonistic to the plastic arts, owing
to a haunting horror of images, inherited from Judaism, and a fear of
falling back under the pagan spell of sensuous beauty: and though later
and for a long period the Church became by far the most munificent
and inspiring patron, the final tendency in the Eastern Empire was to
stifle the true spirit of art by subjecting it to as dogmatic a rigour
in design as in doctrine. Secondly the near presence of the powerful
and rapidly assimilating barbarian, who imitating all things, often
ignorant of their meaning, and incapable of good workmanship, reduced
art in the Western Empire to the lowest ebb.
In Constantinople there lingered a fading shadow of the old Greek
spirit, which, at least, inspired the craftsman to finished workmanship
and a love of elegant form.
In spite of the paralysis caused by the enforcement of a fixed canon of
iconography there were long periods of high artistic excellence (Figs.
17 and 18). We have an exaggerated idea of the rigidity of Byzantine
art owing to the numerous repetitions by inferior craftsmen which
are found in our museums, and by confusing the Golden Age, with the
period of real deadness which commenced in the twelfth century, and
has lasted to this very day in the art of the Greek Church. Byzantine
art became the technical school of the younger nations, teaching them
craftsmanship and design, thus enabling them to express their more
impulsive religious emotions and leading them on till they found the
full expression of their genius in the aspiring beauty of Gothic art.
The best period for commencing the study of mediæval ivory-carving
is with the fourth century, A.D., and the great series of Consular
Diptychs which form the backbone of the early history of the craft and
created a type which lasted through the whole mediæval era.
Theodosius the Great (✝395), divided the Roman Empire between his
two sons. Arcadius ruled the Eastern Empire, his capital continuing
at Constantinople. Honorius, then only eleven years old, nominally
governed the Western. He did not make the Eternal City his seat of
government, in fact the Imperial Court had rarely returned there since
it was deserted by Diocletian. Milan was considered too exposed to the
attacks of the barbarians, so the city of Ravenna, almost impregnable
owing to the surrounding marshes, was chosen, and remained the capital
of the varying rulers of Italy until the eighth century.
Two Consuls were chosen for the East and West, their names continuing
to give the legal date to the year, according to the ancient custom.
And though every vestige of political power was gone, the post was the
object of much ambition, it being a personal favour of the Emperor,
and conferring on the holder the highest rank. It also brought great
popularity with the people, who still honoured the name of Consul,
full of memories of the great republic, and still more passionately
appreciated the Games in the Circus, which it was the expensive
privilege of the Consul to inaugurate on his accession.
These Games were an occasion for great ostentation, and were carried
out with lavish expenditure. First there was a procession of all the
dignitaries of the city, in which the Consul was the most important
figure; this was greeted on its arrival at the amphitheatre by the tens
of thousands of spectators starting up and clapping their hands; then
all were breathlessly still while the Consul, cynosure of every eye,
flung down into the arena the small white napkin, or _Mappa Circensis_,
with which he, and he alone, might signal the commencement of the games.
This was the psychic moment, and the scene has been preserved for all
time on the carved ivory diptychs which were presented by the Consul to
the Senators and other high officials in commemoration of his office.
The word diptych is derived from the Greek δίπτυχον or “double folded,”
and the diptychs given by the Consuls were an elaborate form of the
ordinary writing-tablets or _pugillares_, “a thing held in the fist.”
They consisted of two pieces of ivory joined together like a book by
hinges, decorated on the outside and grooved inside to hold the wax,
which was written on by a sharp style. The most important leaf is the
right hand one, or that which comes uppermost when the book is closed,
on it, with a few early exceptions, the Consul’s name was always
inscribed, the second leaf bearing his titles.
These consular diptychs probably contained the _Fasti Consulares_ or
List of Consuls up to the year of the donor.
They were often gilded, the inscriptions being painted in red; and
some were of great size, as the Byzantine Angel in the British Museum
(frontispiece), which measures 16¼ by 5½ in., and is so large that
no known tusk would suffice to cut it. It has been thought that the
ancients possessed some secret for rolling out ivory or joining it
invisibly; but it is more likely that elephants had not been so
much killed down for the sake of their ivory, so larger tusks were
obtainable.
These tablets were so costly that Theodosius decreed in 384 that they
should only be given away by the _Consules Ordinarii_, or the Consuls
admitted on the 1st of January and who named the year, and not by
those who replaced them or by any other officials; but this law was
soon disregarded, and nine years later we read in a letter of the
noble Roman Symmachus that, in honour of his son’s elevation to the
quæstorship he is sending to the very same Emperor a diptych set in
gold.
This series of diptychs spreads over a period of about 150 years, from
the end of the fourth to the middle of the sixth century. The sculpture
steadily decreasing in value, the earliest examples show freedom
of design and good work, but the last were nothing but indifferent
repetitions of the same subjects, in bad proportion and worse relief
till it became possible to produce a figure such as that of Orestes
(Fig. 4). Soon after Orestes the Emperor Justinian abolished this
ancient office, and, really, he must be held justified if all the
consuls could do was to give bloodthirsty shows to the citizens, and
still more corrupt the standard of art by distributing such despicable
types of art among the provincials.
It is noticeable that all the fifth century diptychs, the earliest and
the best, both consular and otherwise are from the West. By the end
of the century there was a complete collapse, following the further
invasions of the Huns and other barbarians, and the Western Empire
flickered out with the suppression, by Odoacer the Goth, of the last
emperor, grotesquely named Romulus Augustulus, a sort of satire on his
unworthy following of such mighty predecessors.
Orestes, Consul at Rome, 530 (Fig. 4), No. 34,[1] is the only Western
Consul of the sixth century whose diptych has been preserved; the style
is so like that of Constantinople, that it gives weight to Graeven’s
theory that the medallions on it represent Amalasuntha, daughter of
Theodoric the Ostro-Goth, who was then ruling in the name of her young
son Athalric, and who carried on that short renaissance of the Arts, so
artificially introduced from Constantinople by her father. The busts
cannot represent the reigning Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora,
because at that time he was forty-eight years of age, and they never
had a son.
Before passing to the real consular diptychs, it is impossible to leave
unmentioned the splendid tablets of Probianus at Berlin (Fig. 2), No.
50.
We know no more than what the well-cut inscription tells us, that he
was VICARIUS URBIS ROMÆ, or Vice-Prefect of the city of Rome. But,
judging from the style, the good proportions (admitting the convention
which made the person of highest rank the largest), the dignified
faces, and the natural arrangement of the drapery, it must be of early
date, probably towards the end of the fourth century, about the time
of the beautiful tablets of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi (No. 58), to
which it is closely allied by the well-hung drapery and the surrounding
border of delicately cut honeysuckle pattern.
[Illustration: [BERLIN MUSEUM
2. SECOND LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF PROBIANUS
End of fourth century]
The top has a slight gable, as in the early diptych of Probus (Fig.
3), No. 2. Probianus is depicted in the Tribunal, sitting on his
high-backed throne, surrounded by his clerks, who bear piles of writing
tablets, and below, probably outside the _cancelli_ or barrier, which
is to be found in all Roman basilicas, stand the litigants, who appear
to be congratulating him. Outstretched fingers, in early art, meant
the act of speech, and then, as now, congratulatory addresses were
inscribed and presented. On the second leaf we see the address on his
knee, and by a curious convention he is writing with his own hand the
words they acclaim him with, “PROBIANE FLOREAS.”
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [AOSTA CATHEDRAL
3. FIRST LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF PROBUS]
In the first leaf he is delivering judgment, and the two lower figures
wear the toga, showing they are of high rank, and on the other both he
and the litigants are arrayed in the chlamys of ordinary folk. Below,
between the litigants is seen a mysterious object on a tripod stand,
which some say is the _clepsydra_ or water-clock, and others declare to
be the official inkpot. On the right of the Vice-Prefect is a curious
standard-like erection called the _vexilla regalia_, on which was
painted the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, and which was never
absent from any important ceremonial.
The diptych first on Molinier’s list covers an antiphonary in the
Treasury of the Basilica at Monza, which contains so many other
interesting antiquities.
Legend tells us that this ivory was sent about the year 600 to the
Lombard queen, Theodolinda, by Pope Gregory the Great in acknowledgment
of her efforts to convert her very barbaric subjects from the Arian
heresy to Catholicism.
Three figures are represented, a bearded soldier and a stately lady,
who has with her a little boy. It is evidently a portrait group,
and has given rise to many questionings; and among the names of the
numerous historical personages connected with it are those of the
general Constantius, his wife, the famous Galla Placidia, daughter
of Theodosius I., and their little son, afterwards Valentinian III.
This would place it towards the end of the first twenty-five years of
the fifth century. This theory is quite possible, historically; but,
judging from the style, the attribution of Molinier is more likely. He
considers that the figures represent another trio who lived a quarter
of a century earlier. The decadence in art was so exceedingly rapid
that it is very doubtful if such good craftsmanship and originality of
design were possible at the later period. Molinier suggests that the
carving represents the great general Stilicho, who though of Vandal
origin, raised himself to a position of great power. He faithfully
served Theodosius I., and the Emperor on his deathbed intrusted to him
the care of his two young sons.
Stilicho, however, finding his influence in the Eastern Court was
checked by Rufinus, concentrated his energies in the West, and
practically ruled the Western Empire, and his weak young son-in-law,
the Emperor Honorius. He kept the invading hordes at bay by conquest
and treaty till his fall in 408, in which year the three persons
depicted on these tablets—Stilicho, his wife Serena, adopted daughter
and niece of Theodosius I., and their young son, Eucherius, were all
cruelly murdered. This attribution would date it about 400, and an
examination of the style supports the idea. The proportions are good,
and the drapery well rendered, especially Serena’s girdled tunic. The
whole design shows originality, and the figures being portraits, the
craftsman was thrown on his own resources and could not copy from
classical sculpture.
The pose of the figures is somewhat uneasy, and contrasts unfavourably
with the grace of the Bacchantes on the beautiful private diptych, part
in the Musée de Cluny, and part in the Victoria and Albert Museum (No.
58), which probably formed the cover of a marriage contract between
the families of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi. These tablets, though
nearly of the same date, adhere closely to some Greek model, and though
gaining much in beauty, lose in originality.
Camille Jullian in an interesting article[2] points out how in the
midst of thoroughly Roman surroundings, it is only the energetic face
of Stilicho which is not Roman in type and betrays his barbarian origin.
The short tunic worn by Stilicho is embroidered all over with pictures
of his wife and son, his long chlamys having only portraits of the
boy. It was a popular custom at this period to have the portraits of
near relations embroidered on State garments, especially pictures of
children. The poet Claudian in his panegyric on Stilicho, alludes
to scenes from the lives of Eucherius and his little sisters being
embroidered on the robe of their father. More often the portrait was
on a square of stuff, or segment, which was let into the front of the
garment (see Fig. 5).
The first diptych of certain date is that of Probus, Consul at Rome,
406, No. 2 (Fig. 3), and probably intended as a gift for the Emperor
Honorius, who is depicted thereon as a figure of heavy proportions,
borrowed from the common type of imperial statue. The head is evidently
a portrait, as even at the most decadent period there was always a
striving, even if an unsuccessful one, after portraiture and naturalism.
It is interesting to note the nimbus round the head of Honorius. In
heathen times the nimbus was given to the immortals[3] and to images
of the deified emperors. Christian art adopted it, but not invariably,
and it appears to have been regarded more as an attribute of power than
saintliness. Though Christ and his disciples and the Old Testament[4]
heroes received it, it also encircled the heads of the great people of
this world. We find it on the celebrated Justinian mosaics at S. Vitale
in Ravenna, and on the medals of Justinian, and as late as the eleventh
century on the plaque of the Emperor and Empress, Romanus and Eudoxia,
in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris (Fig. 20).
Next in date and infinitely coarser in execution is that of Felix, 428
(No. 3); the head is of a rugged type, and the Consul is represented
standing alone at the door of his house. Asturias, 449 (No. 4), on
the contrary, is throned high in front of a colonnade and accompanied
by two attendants. In the tablet, however, of the Consul Boethius,
487 (No. 5), we see for the first time the Consul seated, _mappa_ in
hand, signalling the commencement of the games; but the design on
the two leaves still has some variation, and on the second leaf he
stands without the _mappa_. The diptych of Sividius, 488 (No. 6),
furnishes the earliest example of the tablets of simpler type, which
were probably given to people of lower degree. It is decorated by an
inscribed medallion surrounded by foliated scrolls and four rosettes.
All these are from the Western Empire.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
4. FIRST LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF ORESTES, 530 A.D.]
With the commencement of the sixth century and the diptych of
Areobindus, Consul at Constantinople, 506, we change to the Eastern
Empire and find the formal type already fixed (see Fig. 4).
The Consul is seen sitting on the _sella curulis_, or consular chair.
This has no back, and is usually made of ivory, with elaborately carved
masks and claws of lions, and sometimes has small figures of Victory on
the arms. On it is a richly embroidered cushion, rather ostentatiously
showing; for to sit on a cushion in the Circus was only allowed to
certain privileged classes. His feet rest on the _scabellum_, or stool,
and he is clad in his gorgeous festival robe, which is a development of
the purple triumphal garb of the victorious generals in earlier days.
The component parts of this dress are still under discussion, but
according to Meyer[5] they consist of four parts:
1st. The _paenula_. A long plain under-robe with long
narrow sleeves;
2nd. The _colobium_. A shorter embroidered over-tunic,
with half length wide sleeves;
3rd. An embroidered strip, which is laid over one shoulder
and hangs down before and behind;
4th. A nameless wrap of lighter material, embroidered or
woven in a pattern.
The complete dress was called the _trabea_ or _toga picta_.
Wilpert,[6] however, declares that Nos. 3 and 4 are one long piece
equal to the ancient toga: without which, by a decree of 382, the
Senators were forbidden to appear in public, and which by more and
more folding was reduced into the narrow Byzantine _lorum_. The feet
were covered with red leather shoes, fastened by crossed ribbons with
falling ends.
The Consul holds in his right hand the _mappa circensis_ and in his
left the _scipio_ or sceptre. These sceptres are crowned by many
devices—an eagle, busts of the imperial family and even two sitting
figures.
As in the diptych of Orestes, there are often two female
personifications of Rome and Constantinople; the former, on the
Consul’s right hand, holds a tessera in her right and a spear in her
left hand. Her helmet has three crests, while that of Constantinople
only one. The latter holds up her right hand and bears a shield or
standard in the left. These cities are sometimes represented in little
medallions on the Consul’s chair (No. 17).
Very often above the head of the central figure were medallions with
the portraits of imperial personages, or, perhaps, renowned ancestors.
These niches were designed in imitation of those wooden shrines in
which Roman households kept the waxen busts of their ancestors.
Sometimes these diptychs were finished with a cross, and some have a
medallion with the bust of Christ (No. 36).
The upper part was inscribed with the name and titles of the Consul,
the last name always denominating the year.
Some early tablets have the name in the genitive, always a sign of
antiquity, as _Nicomachorum_ and _Symmachorum_ (No. 58), _Felicis_ (No.
3), _Lampadorium_ (No. 33), and the plain tablets bearing the name
_Gallieni Concessi V.C._
_V. Inl._ or _Vir Inlustris_, _V. C._ or _Vir Clarissimus_, and even
_Patric._ or _Patrician_, were personal titles and not hereditary. They
denoted that the bearer had held high office. We also find _Præfectus_,
and _Comes domesticorum equites_, or commander of the imperial
bodyguard. To be called _Vir spectabilis_, or a respectable man, was
then esteemed a high honour, while in our degenerate days it is almost
considered an insult. But _Cons. ordin._ or _Consul ordinarius_ was the
real dignity, and with one exception always stood last.
In the lower division of the Orestes tablet, two servants pour money
from sacks, doubtless commemorating the Consul’s largesse to the
people. In some diptychs they scatter prizes for the Games, and often
there are lively representations of the chariot races (No. 33), and
the fights with wild beasts. Areobindus has left us the most varied
pictures. A row of spectators look on at the struggling gladiators
(No. 9), or _Bestiarii_ fighting with all sorts of wild beasts, lions
and bears (No. 7), a bull-fight (No. 10), and on an anonymous diptych
at Liverpool (No. 51), five magnificent elans are being attacked by
hunters.
The fights do not appear to have been very dangerous for the men; the
scenes are often quite comic from the numerous precautions taken,
especially on the Basilewsky tablet at St. Petersburg (No. 52). The
fighters, carefully packed in leather protectors, bolt through doors
with peep-holes, or climb into a sort of crow’s-nest, curling up their
ferocious opponents at the end of extremely long spears. In fact
there was every means of escape, trap-doors, turnstile exits, and
even dummy figures to divert the attention of the animals. Perhaps it
was necessary, for we read of Pompey providing six hundred lions for
a single show, and of Trajan celebrating his Dacian victories by the
slaughter of eleven thousand beasts. If these little precautions had
not been taken, the entertainment might have ended abruptly, and more
in favour of the lower animals than the lords of creation.
The fights of the gladiators represented on the Besançon tablet must
have been more exhibitions of skill than struggles to the death.
These gladiatorial fights ceased after the generous act of the monk
Telemachus. He, after travelling to Rome from the far East with the
set purpose, stept down into the arena, at the triumphal games of the
Emperor Honorius (404), and tried to part the combatants. He was stoned
to death by the enraged multitude; but his death was not unavailing,
for his memory was respected, and these degrading exhibitions were for
ever abolished.
Basilius, Consul at Constantinople, 541, was the last of the Consuls
before the Emperor Justinian, impatient of the empty show of power,
absorbed the office among his other titles, and from that time the
Emperors always went through the form of being made Consul once on
their accession. Basilius is represented on the first leaf of his
diptych (No. 37) standing by the figure of Constantinople, who holds
a standard on a gigantic pole. Below is a minute chariot race. On the
second leaf, which has been cut, a figure of Victory holds an oval
medallion portrait of the Consul. Below is an eagle with outstretched
wings. These two leaves, though widely separated, were proved to be
a pair by the likeness of the thin sickly face of the Consul on each
leaf. This diptych varies considerably from the contemporary design,
and though all idea of the real structure of the body, and of the hang
of drapery from the limbs has disappeared, still it shows so much
originality and clever portraiture, that Graeven, after a careful
consideration of the fashion of the dress, attributes it to an earlier
Consul Basilius of 480, at a time before the grouping had become so
stereotyped.
The number of these carvings given away was so considerable that all
were not of the same richness. There are many tablets of simpler design
and rougher make, several being smaller and in camel bone (No. 43).
These were, as already stated, intended for persons of lower degree.
The decoration consisted usually of a medallion, inscribed, or with
the bust of the Consul, surrounded by foliated scrolls (Areobindus
has left several of this latter kind among his numerous diptychs). The
Barbarini leaf has a charming variation, the bust being inclosed in a
garland bound with hanging ribbons (No. 41). Some are fully inscribed
(No. 35), and others have only a monogram like that formed from the
Greek letters of the name Areobindus (No. 12).
Justinianus, Consul at Constantinople in 541, and afterwards Emperor,
has, in addition to his names, a Latin dedication framed in a circular
moulding of delicate honeysuckle pattern. The diptych of Philoxenus
at the Bibliothèque nationale (No. 29) is quite a new departure.
Three medallions, linked by knotted cords, contain the portrait
of the Consul, his name and titles in Latin, and below, a female
bust, who, some think, represents his wife. She is more likely to
be the personification of Constantinople, judging from the absence
of the fashionable headgear, the hair being simply parted under a
narrow diadem, and from the standard she grasps in her hand, which
is embroidered with a garland in the same fashion as that held
by Constantinople in the Basilius diptychon. The faces are well
characterized and the whole workmanship is excellent, round it is an
elaborate border, the spaces being filled in by a Greek verse, which
runs as follows:
“I Philoxenus being Consul, offer this present to the wise Senate.”
There is a simpler diptych of this Consul at Liverpool, which bears a
Greek dedication to a friend.
The most important among the anonymous consular diptychs is the fine
one preserved in the Cathedral Treasury at Halberstadt (No. 38) on
which the bearded Consul stands among his friends, the group being
varied on each leaf. Above, in a narrow division, are two small
imperial figures seated on a wide throne with the figures of Rome and
Constantinople; at the back stands a Victory, as in the similar design
on a coin of Theodosius I. Below, in another narrow division, are
pathetic groups of captive barbarians. The inscription has been cut
from the top, but the whole style points to an early date, and Meyer
places it between those of Asturias and Boethius in the third quarter
of the fifth century.
The tablet of Lampadius at Brescia is especially interesting for the
large picture it gives of a chariot race, showing the quadrigas rushing
past the _spina_ or turning post.
The Consul, clad in the _trabea_ sits with two companions behind
the richly carved _cancelli_ or balustrade. The only similar
representation is on the magisterial diptych at Liverpool (No. 51),
but the identification is very confusing. In the Brescia tablet the
central _trabea_-clad figure and the man on his left both hold the
_mappa_, but on that at Liverpool there is, more reasonably, only one
starter, but he is on the left of the central figure, who holds a
libation cup instead of the _mappa_, and all three figures have the
same un-consular dress. Meyer points out an inscription announcing the
restoration of the Flavian Amphitheatre by Caecina Felix Lampadius,
in the second half of the fifth century; the inscription being in the
genitive is also a sign of antiquity. But the smooth and rather too
minute workmanship connect it with the best diptychs of the early
sixth century, and so Molinier attributes it to Lampadius, Consul at
Constantinople in 530, and the same year as our old friend Orestes
(Fig. 4), and the smooth finish of the Lampadius tablet can be
contrasted, not altogether unfavourably, with the rougher modelling of
what had become by then almost a provincial school.
The nameless consular diptych of Bourges (No. 39), divides into two
equal registers. Above, the bearded Consul is seated between two
guards, on one leaf these have long hair, and may have been intended
for Goths, and in the corners of the arch are two eagles exactly like
those on the St. Gregory diptych at Monza (No. 44). In each lower half
is a _bestiarius_ transfixing lions and leopards with his spear. The
treatment, if rough, is free, and the grouping of the lions is somewhat
similar to that in the Adam tablet at the Bargello (Fig. 6). It is
probably fifth or early sixth century.
Meyer quotes the text of Gregory of Tours, who describes the
installation of Clovis the Frankish king as Consul of the West in 508,
with all the pomp and honour of Roman custom, and repeats the rather
problematic suggestion that this diptych commemorates the occasion.
The ivory tablet in the British Museum, called the Apotheosis of
Romulus, from a very doubtful reading of the monogram, is probably
also of the fifth or even sixth century, though its thoroughly heathen
subject seems to necessitate an earlier date. The composition is
most elaborate. Below, the Consul, clad in the toga, is seated in an
architectural triumphal car drawn by four elephants, each with their
driver. In the centre he is seen in miniature driving in a quadriga,
which bears him upward, preceded by eagles, from the funeral pile to
the heavens, where he is again represented in the hands of winged
genii, who present him to the assembled gods.
This is interesting as being an example of that continuous method of
composition, in which the same figure is repeated acting in sequence.
This method was introduced into Roman art about the Augustan age, and
was largely continued by Christian art, especially in the MSS. It
gained great popularity, and for a while it seemed doubtful whether the
“continuous” or the “episodic” method would be the leading feature in
modern art.[7]
Several consular diptychs have been turned to Christian religious
uses by slight alterations of the figures, and by the removal of
inscriptions and scenes from the games.
The most important transformed diptych is in the Cathedral Treasury
at Monza (No. 44), which now represents St. Gregory and King David.
The alterations have been considerable, and have given rise to many
differences of opinion, but the latest writers, with the exception
of Meyer, have gone back to the opinion of the earliest, Gori, who
declared the consular origin of these tablets.
St. Gregory did not die till 604, so could not have been canonized
before the seventh century, and the style is fully that of the consular
diptychs in the first half of the preceding century. The saints are
depicted in full consular robes, the right hand raised with the _mappa_
in the act of flinging it into the arena, and in the left the _scipio_.
The background has the typical decorated arch, supported by cannelated
pilasters, over the capitals of which are rectangular spaces having
the names of Gregory and David cut with a deep background, as if to
destroy any under carving. Above the arch is a cross similar to that
on Fig. 4, on each side are two eagles of the Bourges pattern (No.
39). David sits on a curule chair, his feet resting on a stool in good
consular fashion. On each side of the chair, above the leg, is a square
with deep cut carving. These squares might have contained the now
obliterated busts of Rome and Constantinople, which decorate that part
on the diptych of Anastasius (No. 17). In fact the knot and twisted
stalks almost follow the outlines of a head and shoulders. There is
more deep carving let in a narrow groove between the pilasters and the
smooth background, all of which has a Carlovingian character.
St. Gregory has been given a tonsure and his hair has been cut at
the expense of his ears, which have been cut away too. The robes
are untouched, but Gregory’s sceptre has been altered to a cross.
Above the head of David are faint traces of an inscription on the
smooth background, and on the other leaf there is a later inscription
referring to Gregory’s Antiphonary, to a copy of which the tablets
formerly acted as a cover.
On a reliquary book cover at Prague is another consul changed into
St. Peter (No. 45). This figure has suffered considerably, for the
_trabea_ has been so much smoothed that it is hardly distinguishable.
The _mappa_ has been turned into a _volumen_ or roll, the _scipio_ into
a key, and the feet have been bared.
There appears to have been a class of diptychs, each leaf consisting
of five pieces joined together by ivory beading or metal mountings.
The four pieces were arranged like a frame round the central and most
important plaque. (See the later Christian book cover, Fig. 10.) Meyer
suggests they were especially intended for gifts to members of the
imperial family.
Some of these five-piece panels were more probably intended as book
covers, but one undoubted consular diptych in five parts still
survives, though the pieces are scattered. Two horizontal strips are
in the collection of the Marchese di Trivulzio at Milan. The upper one,
with a bust of Constantinople borne by two winged figures, is inscribed
with a dedication to an Emperor, while the lower strip, which is carved
with barbarians rushing forward to present tribute (the same motive as
that of the Magi), bears the Consul’s titles.
Two upright pieces of slightly varying width, on a book cover in
the Munich Library, represent a consul in the act of walking to his
right, and carrying what is probably a congratulatory address to the
Emperor, his hands being religiously veiled. Above and behind him is an
Imperial Guard, with large shield and spear, his robe embroidered on
the shoulders, and his neck encircled by a collar from whence hangs a
bulla, just as we see them on the mosaic in St. Vitale at Ravenna.
The narrower piece has a rigidly vertical design. Below is the full
face figure of a man holding a long staff, and above, the upper portion
of a figure of Victory, holding up over her head a wreath containing a
bust of the Emperor, the exact enlargement of those Victories which so
often stand on the arms of the curule chair (No. 17).
Meyer considers that these two unequal pieces formed the two sides,
but the complete want of balance in the composition makes Molinier’s
opinion that they both formed the right side the more probable. This
increases the number of pieces to seven, but the Victory having no
border may have been sawn off the central plaque. On the other hand,
in the five-piece panel at Ravenna (Fig. 10), the central plaque is
divided horizontally by a beading, if not in two separate pieces. If
we consider that these two pieces formed the right side, and multiply
their combined width for the left side, and then compare the total of
the two sides with the width of the horizontal strips, there is still
ample space for a central plaque representing the Emperor.
Meyer adds to the list of diptychs the celebrated five-piece tablet
in the Barbarini Library at Rome. The upper and lower strips are of
exactly the same character, and in the central plaque the Emperor
(probably Constantine the Great) is seen on a rearing horse, under
whose feet is a woman with her lap full of fruit, who personifies
some conquered country. In the left piece is the figure of a
soldier bringing a Victory, and the other side, which should have a
representation like the Munich Consul, is lost.
Molinier emphatically declares this could not have been a consular
diptych, as there is no trace of inscription; but suggests that it was
the cover of a book intended for the Emperor.
There is one more diptych in exceedingly high relief, which may
possibly be classed among the consular series, the date and subject of
which is still a matter of much discussion. One leaf is in the Bargello
at Florence (Fig. 5), and the other in the Vienna Museum (No. 57).
The Florentine portion represents a personage clad in a robe blazing
with jewels, and standing under an elaborate edifice, holding orb and
sceptre. The Vienna leaf is practically the same, only the figure is
seated on a throne set with precious stones, and extends the right hand
in the same manner as the Empress Eudoxia on Fig. 20, whilst the left
hand supports the orb. The sex of this personage was long disputed, but
now it is considered by most writers to represent a woman, both from
the modelling of the form and from the dress.
The robes of Emperor and Empress were very similar, but on examining
the mosaics of St. Vitale at Ravenna, we find that though Justinian and
Theodora both wear the _chlamys_, hers is more lavishly decorated, and
she wears a large collar of pendant jewels, while Justinian has the
_fibula_. But the head-dresses were always tolerably distinctive till
considerably later. Ladies of high rank all wore a kind of wig-like
turban, sometimes double, as in the case of Serena (No. 1). That it was
a turban and not hair is evident from the striped pattern on that of
Serena. This was often bound with jewels, and the imperial family wore
diadems with long strings of jewels hanging over the ears, as on the
Bargello tablet. These pendants were often, but not invariably, worn by
the Emperor, but his diadem fitted close on to his forehead without the
intervening wig, as we see on the interesting ninth century casket in
the Museo Kircheriano in Rome, where both head-dresses are represented.
A large segment is inserted on the front of her robe by a jewelled
edging, on which we see the portrait of a chubby boy dressed in the
_trabea_, and wielding _mappa_ and _scipio_, a diadem with pendants
being on his head.
Having decided that the figure is intended for a lady, there remains
the vexed question of who she is. Molinier thinks she is of Byzantine
origin, not wrought with the delicate art of the tenth to the eleventh
centuries, but earlier and coarser, and going through the various
historic characters in search of a name, he attributes the portrait
to the Empress Irene, widow of Leo IV., and long Regent for her
ten-year-old son Constantine IV., for she alone would dare to be
portrayed throned, and with all the attributes of sovereignty. It
was Irene who, in the middle of the Iconoclastic period, convened a
council of the Church, repealed the new laws, and encouraged the use of
religious images throughout her realm.
This attribution would bring the date of the diptych down to the end
of the eighth century, and later than the style would seem to warrant;
and it is vigorously opposed by Graeven, who declares that after the
first half of the sixth century, there were no more purely secular
representations; and that the coins of Irene represent her with both
diadem and sceptre surmounted by a cross.
To this may be added the affinity of the architecture with that on
diptychs of the early sixth century, as the eagles on the top, which
are exactly like those surmounting the Bourges (No. 39) and St. Gregory
(No. 44) diptychs. Also the columns with tightly wound curtains are
extremely near in design to those on the tablets of the Poet and Muse
at Monza (No. 63). Curtains, however, with horizontal stripes were
fairly constant all through early art, but were less used in strictly
Byzantine Art than in any other.
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE
5. LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF AMALASUNTHA(?)
Italian, sixth century]
Graeven having given good reasons for placing this ivory in the first
half of the sixth century, suggests that it represents Amalasuntha,
daughter of Theodoric, who, by right of conquest and the reluctant
consent of the Emperor of the East, was King of Italy from 493-526; and
who, by good government, had brought about some measure of order, and
induced a slight renaissance of the arts. Amalasuntha governed at Pavia
in the name of her young son Athalric (Fig. 5).
Graeven suggests that these two are also represented in the medallions
on the diptych of Orestes (Fig. 4). Athalric is represented without a
diadem, like his grandfather on the gold medal, and he wears a coat in
Gothic fashion, like that on the coins of Theodatus, his successor, and
his mother’s second husband. Amalasuntha attempted to control Theodatus
in the same manner as her dead son, but he resented the interference
and had her murdered, thus severing the last link with the enlightened
_régime_ of Theodoric, and plunging the country once more in darkness
and barbarism.
There still remain for attention the Private Diptychs, which were
given away to celebrate a marriage, or a happy recovery to health, or
some other domestic reason. The subjects were usually mythological, and
the compositions, sometimes of great beauty, were chiefly borrowed from
Classical Art.
First, and by far the most beautiful, is the magnificent diptych of
the noble families of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi; the two leaves
are, respectively, in the Musée de Cluny at Paris and the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London. The wonderful preservation of the surface
shows the soft modelling of the ivory, and though the Paris leaf has
been cruelly shattered and several pieces lost, the soft flow of the
drapery is still sufficiently visible.
It is rather saddening to think of the long periods which must elapse
in the history of ivory carving, from this time when drapery was still
a thing of beauty, showing the form it seemed to hide, on through
phases in which the garments were laid on in a series of flat lumps,
or covered with a multitude of meaningless lines, until, finally, it
emerges in Gothic art, no longer diaphanous and clinging, it is true,
but drapery, real drapery, hanging in long swaying folds and falling
round the feet in delicate little heaps in a manner whose perfection
was the sole prerogative of the French craftsmen.
Between the Nicomachus diptych and the famous Diptychon Quirinalis of
Brescia (No. 59), there is a great abyss. On one leaf of the latter
are carved Hippolytus and Phædra, a poor copy of some Greek model; on
the other Diana and Endymion.
Meyer thinks it probable that in the representation of the chaste
Diana, coyly saluting her lover under the chin, we may find the
portrait of a Roman lady. Certainly the attitude of the lady’s left
hand, firmly placed on her hip, could have been copied from no Greek
original, and further, these two figures have curtains behind them and
embroidery on the shoulders of their tunics, after the popular fashion
of the fifth and sixth centuries.
It is interesting to note the architectural background, an arch
supported by two pilasters, which is very similar to that on the St.
Gregory diptych, except that here the string-course which supports the
scallop shell has not been cut away as in that at Monza.
Liverpool Museum has a fine pair of tablets representing Æsculapius and
Hygeia (No. 61); which undoubtedly refer to recovery from an illness.
The figure of Æsculapius appears to be taken from the Farnese Hercules.
Another small ivory of this subject is in a private collection in
Zurich; the figures vary considerably, but are evidently of the same
period—mid sixth century.
There is one more diptych in that wonderful collection in the Treasury
of the Basilica at Monza; representing an elderly bald-headed man,
whose heavy torso and fat puffy face are well characterized, though
the pose is rather awkwardly rendered. He appears to be a poet, for
writing tablets and a _volumen_ lie at his feet, and on the adjoining
leaf we see a Muse playing on the lyre. But from her matronly figure
and his uncompromising ugliness, we appear to be dealing with another
of those portrait diptychs, like the one at Brescia, in which the noble
Roman had his portrait taken in fancy dress.
There are two most interesting tablets now in the Bibliothèque
nationale at Paris, originally from Sens, where they long served as
a binding to the thirteenth century MS. containing “The Office of
Fools,” or that read on the first day of the year, and in which was
incorporated many customs derived from the Roman Saturnalia. The
decoration is frankly pagan, and is somewhat similar in style to the
sarcophagi of the third century, on which the various scenes are
superimposed in much the same manner.
On one leaf Bacchus Helios is represented clasping a thyrsis in one
hand and an empty wine-cup in the other, while he stands upright in
a car drawn by a male and female centaur. Above are lively scenes of
the vintage, little figures gathering grapes and gaily treading out
the wine. At the bottom of the tablet a group of sea-gods are seen
disporting themselves among dolphins and other fish.
In the centre of the other tablet Diana Lucifera, rises like the moon
from the sea; she wears a crescent on her brow, and round her head
floats a cloud of airy drapery. She carries a lighted torch, and the
two bulls which draw her chariot bound rapidly upward out of the sea.
Above are a satyr and nymph, some women, Cupid and the tiny figure of
Venus in a shell, and below, lying on the waters, is a figure of the
Sea, surrounded by fish and holding a curious crustacean in her hand.
These diptychs have passed through many vicissitudes during the lapse
of time. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a later carving on
the back of a mutilated consular diptych, from which the whole surface
has been smoothed away, leaving only a deeper outline here and there.
This gives an idea of the fate of a large number of carved ivories, and
of our great loss; and it is entirely to the adoption of diptychs for
liturgical purposes by the Church that we owe the preservation of those
that remain. The bishops, being high functionaries, may have received
them as gifts, and others were votive.
The Council of Mopsueste, in 550, ordered the churches to keep the
diptychs, and the names of those persons to be prayed for during
the celebration of mass to be inscribed in them, in the following
categories, all having a more or less local connection with the
particular church:
Firstly: Neophytes, or newly baptized;
Secondly: Benefactors, Sovereigns and Bishops;
Thirdly: Saints and Martyrs; and
Lastly: The Faithful Dead “in the sleep of peace.”
People were very anxious to have their names inscribed, and fearful of
being scratched out for heresy.
For the dead bishops the prayer was less for them, than to them, from
which comes the word “canonize,” or to be named in the Canon of the
Mass. On the inner side of the diptych of Clementinus, at Liverpool,
there is in roughly written Greek letters a prayer for the clergy of a
church of St. Agatha, and for “our Shepherd Hadrian the Patriarch,” who
can be none other than Pope Hadrian (✝795); this diptych probably came
from a church in Sicily, for Greek was still spoken, and the patron
saint of Palermo is St. Agatha.
Lists of bishops were inscribed, and when the list grew too long
parchment leaves were inserted. Whole services were bound in these
carvings, and the covers of many of the oldest MSS. are of diptychs,
set in an elaborate border of goldsmith’s work, to increase the size as
well as to enhance the beauty.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The numbers to the diptychs, in all cases, refer to those in the
list of diptychs at the end of the book.
[2] _Mélanges de l’Archéol. et d’Histoire_, Rome, 1882.
[3] See the figure of Circe in the Casa di Modesta, Pompeii.
[4] See the Joshua Rotulus, edited by the Directors of the Vatican
Library, Rome.
[5] _Zwei Antike Elfenbeintafeln_, Munich, 1879.
[6] _L’Arte_, 1898.
[7] _Roman Art_, Wickhoff, Eng. trans. by Mrs. A. Strong.
CHAPTER II
LATIN AND BYZANTINE IVORIES
I. LATIN, LATINO-BYZANTINE AND THE EARLY BYZANTINE IVORIES
At the end of the last chapter it was shown how the Church had
preserved a large number of consular diptychs, either unchanged or
altered to suit Christian iconography. To that list must be added
several ivory carvings with religious subjects, yet so closely
connected with the class of Private Diptychs, that it is more than
probable that they also have undergone transformation.
The most important among these are a fragmentary panel in the Museo
Civico at Bologna and the celebrated Ivory Book of Rouen Cathedral.
On the Bologna fragment is the figure of a bearded man of heavy type,
in a well designed but poorly executed robe; he clasps a roll in his
left land and beneath his neatly sandalled feet is a stool, always
a mark of honour, in the side of which is a deepened space with the
name “Petrus” rudely inscribed. Above, in the broken pediment, is a
niche with the bust of a bearded man, labelled “Marcus.” The whole is
surrounded by a handsome ovolo moulding, as are also the panels of the
Rouen Book Cover, which may be of a slightly later date, but they must
both be placed early in the sixth century. The Rouen carvings represent
St. Peter and St. Paul, without a doubt, for they are already of that
iconographical type which had become fixed by the end of the preceding
century, St. Paul with a bald head and long pointed beard, and St.
Peter with thick hair and a round curling beard; but it is very likely
that the figures on both the Bologna and Rouen tablets were originally
intended for authors or poets as on the series of complimentary
diptychs.
The architecture lends credence to this theory, the cannelated columns
and pediment flanked by so-called “doves,” being much the same as that
on the various sixth century diptychs. The drapery too, has been copied
from good models, that of St. Peter, with the right arm buried in the
folds of his toga, is in imitation of the famous Lateran Sophocles.
Another proof of alteration is the manner in which he holds a narrow
key in a grasp wide enough to contain a roll as large as that in the
Bologna fragment.
There is a diptych in Tongres Cathedral,[8] which has a history
carrying it back to the ninth century. The names of the Bishops of
Tongres from 855-959 being engraved on the back.
It evidently belongs to the large class of ivories of mixed
Latino-Byzantine origin. The vine scroll border, the flat relief and
rather grooved working of the draperies, also the peculiar stockings
and oriental shoes are all features of this class. St. Paul raises his
hand to bless in the Greek manner, with only two fingers extended.
The interpretation of this gesture is variously given, many say it is
symbolical of the dual nature of Our Lord and of the Trinity.
Byzantine, equally with Italian art, sprang from the last _floraison_
of Roman Art, and grew up at Constantinople, the New Rome, but much
modified by Greek and Syrian influences. At first the culture of the
two Empires was so linked together, that it is the merest shade which
distinguishes Roman Art in the East and West. The division widens, and
the two branches stretch out, one, the purely Latin, soon to wither
and almost perish, and the other to grow into that spreading tree of
Byzantine Art, whose branches have scattered fruit in every part of
Europe and the Levant.
The latest bloom on the purely Latin branch, before it commenced
to decay, included ivories of singular beauty, as the splendid
casket at Brescia and the famous Carrand diptych in the Bargello at
Florence (Figs. 5 and 6). This carving is of superb finish, worthy
of the beautiful Bacchante diptych, though the design is less purely
classical. The first leaf represents Adam in the Earthly Paradise,
engaged in naming the animals, the figure is thoroughly Greek, and the
treatment closely resembles an Orpheus scene, though the curiously
crimped hair and heavy hands and feet betray a decline in art. The
animals show delightful touches of first-hand observation, the worrying
attitude of the little dog, who, forgetting he is in Paradise, is just
going to bark at the dignified goat below. The droop of the bull’s head
as he grazes by the side of the Four Rivers is very natural, though the
artist still adheres to the rather dry technique of animal portrayal in
ancient art. These animals may be compared with those on the diptych
of Bourges, which are scattered over the background in much the same
way, but with less defiance of perspective, as they are supposed to be
leaping in the act of fighting.
The object of much controversy is another fine Earthly Paradise carved
on the back of an Areobindus diptych in the Louvre (No. 13). It is
divided into registers by irregular lines of herbage; above are Adam
and Eve and the Serpent, next come a series of weird mythological
creatures, and then follow serried ranks of animals, fabulous and
otherwise. Molinier declares it cannot be later than the sixth century,
and connects it with the Bargello diptych, but there is a real
difference in the feeling and technique of the animals, and a bizarre
element, quite foreign to the matter-of-fact and straightforward
methods of ancient art. In the opinion of de Linas and Graeven, the
carving was added in the early periods of the Italian Renaissance, and
the former points out a connection with the carvings on the façade of
Orvieto Cathedral.
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE
6. DIPTYCH WITH THE EARTHLY PARADISE AND SCENES
FROM THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL
Italian, fifth century]
The second leaf of the Bargello diptych is covered with three rows of
exquisitely carved and well characterized figures. The top row may
represent the meeting of Paul and Barnabas with Peter at Damascus. The
next shows Paul at Malta, shaking the viper into the fire (Acts, xviii.
3), and remaining unhurt, to the surprise of Publius, governor of the
island, who stands by dressed as a man of rank in a chlamys embroidered
with a segment and fastened by a rich fibula. The soldier with the
strange sleeved fur coat hung over his shoulders is probably one of the
governor’s guard. At the bottom we see the healing of the father of
Publius, who lay sick of a fever.
The Lipsanoteca, or large ivory casket in the Museo Civico at Brescia,
is a fine work of early Christian sculpture, and has far more
connection with antiquity than with the early development of the art
of the Middle Ages. But it is difficult to pass it by undescribed, as
it gives the early types of so much that is met again in later art.
Molinier classes it among the sixth century ivories of mixed style. But
Westwood points out that the mingling of subjects from the Old and New
Testament histories, and the small size given to some of them as border
pieces, show the precise treatment of many early sarcophagi, also the
classical nature of many of the details point to an early date, and he
attributes it at latest to the fourth century, with which date Graeven
entirely agrees.
The casket has a frieze of fifteen heads in medallions, and in the
narrow borders are the symbolical Types of Old Testament history. The
large central scenes are from the New Testament, showing Christ as the
Good Shepherd at the Gate of the Fold, and several of the miracles
which became so popular on the Italo-Byzantine ivories, including the
rarer scene of the _Raising of Jairus’s daughter_, which has many
features in common with the _Raising of Tabitha_ on one of a series of
three most interesting little plaques in the British Museum, notably in
the treatment of the long waving hair of the attendant women. On the
flat lid the Cycle of the Passion is most fully illustrated, but stops
short with the scene in the Prætorium before the sad representation of
the Crucifixion.
The great similarity between the art of the Eastern and Western
divisions of the Roman Empire has already been mentioned, and it is
this similarity which causes considerable difficulty in classifying
the early ivories. The three British Museum plaques just referred to
as having a close connection in the scene of the _Raising of Tabitha_
to the Brescia casket, which is undoubtedly of Western origin, have
also a strong resemblance to the first half of a diptych now in the
Trivulzio Collection at Milan, both in the dress of the soldiers, and
in the crouching figure of one of the Holy Women, which are almost
identical on the two ivories. Molinier considers the Trivulzio tablet
to be purely Constantinopolitan, but Graeven produces good evidence for
connecting it with Latin sculpture.
This tablet is divided into two scenes from the first Easter Morn, the
startled soldiers by the tomb of Christ, and the Angel appearing to the
two Maries. The proportions are on the whole good, though inclining
to the dumpiness peculiar to the reliefs on the sarcophagi. There are
other details which betray the influence of these sculptures. The half
opened door of the tomb is found on pagan coffins, and the dress of
the soldiers, with the strange round headgear, rather like a cook’s
cap, is often characteristic of the Jews, and is found on several of
the sarcophagi. In the British Museum plaques the Israelites who stoop
down to drink of the water from the rock wear exactly the same dress,
treated in exactly the same manner, even to the ends of the chlamys,
which fly out in rapid movement.
This dress is also found in a Codex (No. 286) at Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, and again on another set of plaques in the British
Museum, which belonged to a casket, and are of a deep reddish colour.
On these plaques the types of the Holy Women are the same as those
on the Trivulzio tablet, and the crouching women in the _Raising of
Tabitha_ in the British Museum set of three. The Crucifixion (Fig. 7)
belongs to the coloured set, and is the earliest representation known,
excepting that on the carved wood doors of St. Sabina at Rome, which
were made by Greek workmen for Pope Celestin (432-440), and the two
conceptions have much in common in modelling and pose.
It should be noticed that the _titulus_ is written only in Latin.
A most important proof of the Latin origin of these ivories is the
finely cut honeysuckle moulding which surrounds the door of the tomb
in the Trivulzio tablet, and which is found both on the diptych of
Probianus (Fig. 2) and on that of the Nicomachi family (No. 58). The
tablet has another close connection with the Probianus diptych in
the division of the surface into two tiers by the border, and the
recognition of the existence of three dimensional space, by grouping
the figures firmly on the ground. This knowledge was soon forgotten,
and the figures on sculptures of scarcely later date float about one
over the other without the artist being in the least troubled by the
problem of the depth of inclosed space. The close connection with these
diptychs points to an early date, probably not later than the first
decades of the fifth century. The dividing border[9] is very common
in Carlovingian ivories, and is, perhaps, one reason why Westwood
and Stuhlfauth attribute the Trivulzio plaque to that epoch, but a
comparison of the “space” arrangement, imperfect as it is, with any
Carlovingian ivory, clearly shows the superiority of the more ancient
work.
[Illustration: DR. GRAEVEN PHOTO.] [BRITISH MUSEUM
7. THE CRUCIFIXION
Italian, commencement of fifth century]
[Illustration: DR. GRAEVEN PHOTO.] [BRITISH MUSEUM
8. CHRIST LEAVING THE PRÆTORIUM
Italian, commencement of fifth century]
After this time angels were rarely represented without wings; the
absence of wings makes the beautiful nimbed angel on the Trivulzio
plaque quite indistinguishable from the figures of Christ on the
British Museum plaques with the Passion. It is interesting to note,
just about the end of the fourth century, the earliest representation
of the symbolism of the Apocalypse in the presence of the Bull of St.
Luke and St. Matthew’s Angel. The round shape of the tomb, with the
raised tiled roof, is a difficult point, it appears to be the germ
of the elaborate circular edifice with a cupola which became such a
feature in purely Byzantine Art; but there were many circular tombs[10]
in Rome for the artist to copy, and the huge round mass of the
Mausoleum of Hadrian consisted of a drum, raised on a square basis, and
decorated with columns and statues in a rather similar manner to the
tomb on the fine Byzantine plaque with the _Ascension_, in the Munich
Museum.
Thus we find the two sets of plaques in the British Museum and the
Trivulzio tablet closely connected with each other and in touch with
the Brescia casket. The workmanship is not so good on the smaller
pieces, but on the whole the drawing is fairly correct, the drapery
well designed and falling in few and soft folds over the rather chubby
forms; and the whole technique is very different from the unyielding
draperies and the too minute details of the consular diptychs.
Sculpture in ivory prospered, while that in marble declined. The
fashion of sculptured marble sarcophagi had almost died out in the
sixth century; but the Latin types and traditions were carried on
by a series of carved pyxes, till they gradually merged in the
Latino-Byzantine Art.
These pyxes are little circular boxes made in Italy, and dating
practically from the fifth and sixth centuries. Many were of pagan
origin, and decorated with mythological subjects, some being used for
the toilet requisites of Roman ladies; and others were, doubtless,
_accerae_, or boxes for holding incense for heathen worship, such as we
see in the hand of the lovely Bacchante on the diptych of the Symmachi
family in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Afterwards they found a place
in Christian liturgy, being used to hold the Reservation of the Host.
The most ancient and beautiful pyx of Christian origin is in the
Berlin Museum. It was probably carved in the fifth century from good
antique models; on it, Christ, posed like Probianus on his diptych, and
represented as a beardless youth, is teaching the Apostles. St. Peter
and St. Paul (who usually takes the place of Judas among the twelve)
are seated at His feet. The apostle on the right of Christ raises his
hand, just in the manner of a consul about to throw the _mappa_. On the
other side is a very beautiful figure of Abraham sacrificing Isaac.
The style is so completely that of the sarcophagi that when the design
is drawn as a flat strip it could easily be mistaken for one. In the
Bargello there is a well-carved pyx with a lively picture of the Angel
appearing to the Shepherds, who, with their rough short garments and
thick crooked sticks are typical antique figures and very like Joseph’s
brothers on the Throne of Maximian (Fig. 13). We also find on the
Throne the strange basket chair in which the Virgin sits. The onward
rush of the Magi, as they bear gifts to the Infant Saviour, is a very
favourite motive in Byzantine Art. Their barbaric costume, of trousers
and short girdled shirt, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, traces back all
through ancient Greek Art, and, minus the cap, is still the summer
dress of the Russian peasant.
A pyx in the Musée de Cluny (Fig. 9) is of interest, giving some of the
same series of miracles that are found so repeatedly at this period,
both in carvings and in the mosaics. The Healing of the Paralytic, who
carries his bed, Restoring sight to the man born blind, the Woman of
Samaria, the Raising of Lazarus, and the ever popular whale scenes from
the Life of Jonah (Fig. 10).
The minds of the early Christians seemed turned away from the scenes of
Christ’s Passion and Death, and only dwelt on His human relations as
a Teacher and Healer, and on His glorious position as “Pantocrator,”
Ruler of All. A great triumphal joy seems to break out in the glowing
mosaics of the earlier basilicas, and again and again, Christ, the
Mighty, the Ruler, is represented in enormous size on the glittering
walls, and not a trace of His sufferings, which formed the chief theme
of later art.
In the series of miracles Christ is nearly always represented is a
young beardless man, with a slight smile, the hair sometimes cut short
in Roman fashion, but more often at this period with clustering curls.
This younger, or “Ideal” type is, perhaps, slightly the earlier, and
we find it in the catacomb frescoes and the most ancient mosaics and
sarcophagi. The so-called “Portrait” type of Christ, as a Nazarene,
with long hair and beard and a grave face, tending to severity was
employed at the same time and sometimes side by side in the same
decoration, as in the Ivory Book of St. Lupicien, and the mosaics of S.
Vitale at Ravenna, both sixth century. In each case He is figured as
Pantocrator, this type being invariably bearded in Byzantine Art. On
some few sarcophagi He is also represented with a beard.
[Illustration: [MUSÉE DE CLUNY, PARIS
9. PYX, CHRIST RAISING THE PARALYTIC
Italo-Byzantine, sixth century]
Early in the third century there had been a sharp struggle about
the appearance of Our Lord; many sided with Tertullian, making Him
of abject form, others with Jerome and John Chrysostom declared He
conquered souls by His beauty. The latter opinion prevailed, as it
agreed with the existing traditions of the beauty of the Immortals. It
is interesting to note that during this controversy no actual portrait
was referred to, all the so-called portraits of Our Lord being of later
date.
Fig. 10 is typical of a large group of ivory carvings of mixed origin.
These book covers and the later pyxes are closely allied to the scenic
pieces on the Throne of Maximian, though the technique is inferior,
some being of very rough workmanship.
The arrangement of these panels is like that of the five-piece consular
diptych mentioned in the last chapter, only the vertical side panels
are divided into two pieces by a border. The three important examples
of this kind of book cover are: this single panel from S. Michele di
Murano, now in the Ravenna Library, the two panels of the Book of
St. Lupicien, in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris, and the pair
lately discovered by Dr. Strzygowski in the Patriarchal Library at
Etschmiadzin on the slopes of Mount Ararat.
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [MUSEUM, RAVENNA
10. COVER OF A BOOK OF THE GOSPELS,
FROM S. MICHELE DI MURANO
Italo-Byzantine, sixth century]
The figures on the Murano panel are long and slight, and the modelling,
though very barbarous, does round off to the background. Above are the
well-known group of flying angels supporting a garland. These figures
in the course of time have gone through a whole cycle of changes;
starting from the flying Erotes who so commonly support the portrait of
the deceased on Roman sarcophagi, they became clothed and elongated,
as we see them here, and at last stripped and chubby again we find
them on the tombs of the Medici, while their grown-up relations hover
over many an Italian picture and sculpture. The peculiar dumpy dolphin
is an interesting specimen of longevity, going through more than two
thousand years of life from the Choragic Monument at Athens to a London
Drinking Fountain without changing a line. The surprised gesture of the
accompanying disciple (Fig. 9), and of the Three Children in the Fiery
Furnace (Fig. 10), is another of those delightful conventions that meet
us at every turn in this most naïve group of sculptures. We meet it
again in the St. Lupicien panels, which are very similar, but nearer
in technique to the scenes on the Throne of Maximian. The subjects
vary little, but instead of Jonah there is a charming picture of the
Woman of Samaria standing by the well. The figure of Christ seated in
the central panel is old and bearded, and it so closely resembles the
St. John Baptist on the Throne (Fig. 12) that, except for the large
cruciform nimbus, it might be taken for that saint. The workmanship is
coarse and the hands are terribly large and ill drawn.
The drawing on the Etschmiadzin Book Cover, which is in the same style
as St. Lupicien, is still more incorrect, the legs and arms of the
flying angels being quite detached and merely placed in the drapery at
suitable angles. The modelling is even worse, and goes in many places
sheer down to the background from a surface covered with grooved lines.
Yet the figure of the youthful Christ is not unpleasing, with the wide
smooth face so characteristic of early Byzantine art. The pose, with
fingers raised to teach or bless, is taken directly from the Roman
official type, and should be compared with the diptych of Probianus.
The Virgin is accompanied by two angels, who, though without wings, can
be recognized by their pointed diadems, which have been inherited by
the angels in Italian painting.
There are a number of ivories of a double character, strongly
influenced by Byzantine art yet not so closely allied to the Ravenna
Throne as those already mentioned. The magnificent angel in the British
Museum should probably be classed among these (frontispiece). It is
the first half of a diptych of unusual size, and though the drapery
is a little unmeaning in places, still it is good, and with the rich
architecture and the thickly feathered wings, forms a splendid whole.
There is nothing to compare with it in the sixth century for firmness
of design; yet the tendency to fullness in the face and the wealth
of detail are signs of lateness, and it can hardly be dated with any
certainty before the last years of the fifth century. The first half of
the Greek inscription reads, “_Receive these things that are present
and learning the cause_—”. It is sad to see how soon this fine type was
debased and moon faces and unstructural forms became the order of the
day.
A beautiful book cover in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris (Fig.
11) came from the Cathedral of Metz, where it had been for centuries
a model to the Carlovingian and German craftsmen. The pure design and
justness of the movements, together with the generous folds of the
drapery, all denote a close study of the fine work of antiquity; yet
the complication of the design and the exaggerated fineness of the
carving, which is pierced right through, show how far the work is
from the simplicity of ancient art. The Italian craftsman had still
individuality enough to resist the Byzantine influence in some things.
The Virgin is draped like a Roman lady, and Herod has not yet donned
the dress of a Byzantine functionary, as on the later ivories where
court etiquette reigns supreme.
The artist of the Milan book covers had not so much strength, and has
succumbed still more to Byzantine influence. These panels have been
enriched at a later date by a jewelled lamb and cross. Much of the
dress and detail is still Latin, but he draws his inspiration from the
apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, and represents the Virgin receiving the
Divine message, not in her own house but by the side of a stream, from
which she is drawing water in a tall vase.
The three plaques of the casket of Werden (now in the Victoria and
Albert Museum) belong to this series; there are the same rushing
figures of the Magi, bearing strange gifts on flat dishes, and the
Virgin also stands by the stream. A curious survivor of paganism is
present at the Baptism of Our Lord, the allegorical figure of Jordan,
not by any means a modest accessory, but a large muscular figure,
proudly comparing his fine shoulders with the rather meagre proportions
of the sacred figures. Decidedly the Christian artists preferred the
Spirit to the Flesh, and the era of elongated figures and champagne
bottle shoulders was soon to commence.
[Illustration: A. GIRAUDON PHOTO.] [BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, PARIS
11. COVER OF A BOOK OF THE GOSPELS, WITH
THREE SCENES FROM THE NATIVITY
Italo-Byzantine, sixth century]
Milan Cathedral possesses another ivory carving too important to be
passed over, which Molinier and Graeven attribute to this period in
contradiction to Labarte, who declares it to be Italian Carlovingian
of the ninth century, but the design is too closely connected with
the series just under discussion for it to be possibly of later date
than the sixth century. The two leaves of the diptych are crowded with
active little figures, all intent on the business in hand. It should be
noted that though the angel by the tomb is almost identical with that
on the Trivulzio tablet, the guards are differently dressed, having the
crested helmet and mailed tunic of antique Roman soldiers.
The separation of the two schools had become complete when the plaque
in the Munich Museum was carved, probably well on in the sixth century.
It is unmistakably Byzantine; in the lower half the Holy Women visit
the Tomb, whilst above, there is a fine figure of Christ ascending
to heaven; He rises with a powerful impetus, and the whole scene is
far superior in vigour to the later representations. There is an
interesting plaque in the Liverpool Museum, on which the Carlovingian
craftsman has closely imitated the grouping of the Holy Women and the
soldiers round the tomb.
The glory of the ivory craft is at Ravenna, the magnificent Throne of
St. Maximian, bishop of that city from 546-553.
[Illustration: L. RICCI PHOTO.] [CATHEDRAL, RAVENNA
12. FRONT OF THE THRONE OF MAXIMIAN
Italo-Byzantine, sixth century]
This _cathedra_ or episcopal chair is entirely covered with carved
ivory, and has been treasured in the Cathedral for more than fourteen
centuries. The throne was made in the sixth century, during that
period of great artistic activity, when Justinian was engaged in
beautifying Constantinople and the other great cities of his Empire.
The new Church of St. Sophia was being decorated in the most gorgeous
manner. The old chroniclers tell of gold and silver doors, and six
doors of carved ivory; so the custom of overlaying large surfaces with
ivory plaques was not an innovation. The bishop ordered his Throne and
set it up at a time when Ravenna was still an important centre, and
yearly adding to the number of its beautiful buildings.
S. Vitale, newly finished and decorated with the celebrated mosaic
portraits of Justinian and Theodora, was consecrated by St. Maximian
himself, who is pictured on the walls by the side of the Emperor. Yet,
in spite of all this encouragement, art, and sculpture in particular,
had already commenced that steady decline to the period of comparative
stagnation which, as Professor Krumbacher, the well-known Byzantine
scholar, says, affected not only art but literature, and lasted nearly
two hundred years, from about 650 to 850. The decline can be traced in
the mosaics at Ravenna; those in S. Vitale are not so good as those in
the tomb of Galla Placidia, while the decoration of the Baptistery is
the most ancient and the best.
The Throne is most precious as an exception, showing really artistic
work in a period when originality was rare. The height is one yard
fourteen inches, the seat being flanked by two panels rising above it
and forming the arms; the front is entirely filled in by the large
panel with five saints, the back is high and semi-circular, the top
being arched. At the junction of the side panels, with the front and
back, are upright posts, which form the feet, and rising slightly
above the level of the panels are capped by flattened balls; these,
and the strips of ivory which divide the back into little scenes, are
carved with the most decorative vine scrolls, growing out of vases of
classical shape, and peopled with a whole world of animals leaping in
and out amid the leaves and bunches of grapes.
These borders show real progress and the adoption of new oriental
ideas. The animated scroll work is often found on the Eastern textiles
of this period, which must have formed objects of constant trade. The
Koptic tombs on the Nile Delta[11] have yielded a numerous collection
of contemporary textiles with beautifully woven patterns in much the
same style. The vine from being a popular pagan decoration became
closely connected with the Christian religion.
The carving of the wide borders on the back, if rather summary, attains
the largeness of treatment as of sculpture in marble. The actual
manual work on the Throne varies somewhat, and is probably the work of
different artizans, Byzantine or Italian, but there can be little doubt
that the whole was the work of one master mind.
The Five Saints on the front panel are of noble design and most
carefully carved, but lacking in spontaneity. Each stands under the
familiar round arch, and the scallop shell is arranged as a kind of
halo behind each head.
The grand figure of John the Baptist stands in the middle of the Four
Evangelists, among whom we are tempted to recognize St. Peter and St.
Paul, but this resemblance is probably owing to the artist’s poverty of
types. Above, in the border, flanked by two peacocks of evident Syrian
origin, is the monogram of the saint, which reads
_Maximianus episcopus_.
The plaques on the side panels deal with the life of Joseph, and those
on the back have scenes from the life of Christ. The latter were
twenty-four in number, but only seven remain, four inside and three
out. Some of these are carved on each side, and all are bordered with
a narrow and much debased Greek bead and lozenge moulding, which is
an additional help in the identification of the straying pieces. One
of these lost plaques is now in the collection of Count Stroganoff at
Rome; it represents on one side “the Entry into Jerusalem,” and on the
other “the Nativity,” with an additional incident in the withering of
the hand of the incredulous attendant, Salome, which is recounted in
the apocryphal gospels. The type of Joseph in this scene is just the
low-browed, bullet-headed type of the Greek wrestler, and must have
been borrowed from some ancient sculpture.
[Illustration: L. RICCI PHOTO.] [CATHEDRAL, RAVENNA
13. PANEL FROM THE THRONE OF MAXIMIAN
Italo-Byzantine, sixth century]
In the scene of the Annunciation the Virgin sits in a high-backed chair
of basket-work, just like that on the Bargello pyx, with the Visit of
the Magi. She is spinning, as described in the apocryphal gospels, and
beside her stands a basket for her wool.
The plaque, with the Virgin riding on an ass, is not the flight into
Egypt, but the journey to Bethlehem just before the Child was born,
and the languid attitude of the Virgin as she leans in weakness on the
shoulder of Joseph, is rendered with much feeling.
The Baptism of Christ is peculiarly interesting as it gives an insight
into the early types of this subject. The Holy Spirit in the form of a
dove flies headlong downwards, and Christ is represented as a little
naked child, and beside him, leaning on an urn is the personification
of the River Jordan. Another remnant of pagan tradition is found in the
winged and bearded genius of Sleep, who stands by Pharaoh’s couch in
the “Dream Scene.” This figure also appears on a plaque in the Early
Christian Room at the British Museum, which is decorated with scenes
from the life of Christ, the strange bearded angel being present at
the baptism. There is a very interesting ivory in the same room, a pyx
representing the Martyrdom of St. Menas, which has another peculiarity
in common with the carvings on the Throne, in the elaborate and
curiously embroidered blouse worn by the executioner, which is like
that worn by Joseph in the house of Potiphar.
The scenes from Joseph’s life are more deeply carved than the others,
the figures are wonderfully characterized, the oriental faces of the
Egyptians are framed in long plaits, like the Egyptian hair dressing
on the monuments, which is even now to be seen on the Upper Nile. All
these reliefs are a curious mixture of close observation of nature
and servile imitations of classical types. The woman present at the
sale of Joseph, holds her hand in her veil like many a stately figure
in Roman art, but the meeting of Joseph with his old father is quite
modern in its emotional force, the old man tremblingly totters forward
into the arms of his stalwart young son, and one cannot help feeling
irritated at the bystanders’ conventional gestures as they gaze on
such a touching scene. Jacob’s wild distress (Fig. 13) is terribly
realistic, and the contrasted stony despair of the bereaved Rachel is
most dramatic. Rachel appears in other presentments of this subject,
but the Bible narrative mentions her death some time before.
The _provenance_ of this great monument is a very thorny question,[12]
many writers notice the strongly marked oriental characteristics, and
some infer that it was imported from Alexandria, which then had a
flourishing school of artists and craftsmen. St. Maximian certainly
visited Alexandria before he was made bishop, and he may afterwards
have ordered the Throne to be made there, or brought over Alexandrian
workmen. There is every reason to believe the story that the Emperor
Heraklius brought over a carved ivory throne from Alexandria in
the beginning of the next century. The difficulty of adopting this
Alexandrian theory lies in the existence of an Italo-Byzantine school
in Italy, which is proved by the number of pyxes and book covers,
which seem to show nearly every step between the old Latin and the
almost entirely Byzantine art of the Ravenna Throne. Of course many
of these may have been influenced by the carvings on the Throne, but
many are undoubtedly of earlier date. Any way, with the acceptance
or rejection of this theory stands or falls the European origin of
several other most important ivories: first and most important, the
much-discussed Berlin diptych, representing on one leaf Christ as a
middle-aged man, very similar in type to the John Baptist (Fig. 12),
and on the others the Virgin, attended by wingless angels; Schmirnoff,
by close examination of the border, which has been partially cut away,
believes he has discovered the remains of a monogram similar to that
on the front panel of the Throne. Also the plaque with the _Baptism
of Christ_, in the British Museum, the Tongres diptych, the “Bateman”
diptych, and one or two others which are closely related in style.
Reference was made to an ivory throne brought from Alexandria to
Constantinople by Heraklius (610-641). This throne was ultimately
placed in the Cathedral at Grado, and the legend grew up that it was
actually the episcopal throne of St. Mark, who was the first Bishop of
Alexandria.
In the Castello at Milan there are a series of five plaques dealing
with the subject of St. Mark’s mission to Alexandria and Cyrene, as
told in the Acts of St. Mark; there is every probability that they
belonged to the throne of St. Mark in Grado, which appears to have
been more or less perfect in the sixteenth century, but is reported by
a later writer to be entirely stripped of its decoration. The Milan
reliefs are of a very distinctive technique, the drapery being marked
by rib-like folds, usually in couples, and the type of face is refined,
though over elaborated. They are earlier than the time of Heraklius,
and probably date from the sixth century.
Three scattered plaques are unmistakably connected with this series;
_St. Peter dictating the Gospel of St. Mark_, with a winged figure
behind, in the Victoria and Albert Museum; _The Raising of Lazarus_ in
the British Museum, and _The Annunciation_, in the Trivulzio Collection
at Milan. The two last are more delicately carved, but the striking
similarities of pose and drapery, and the same violent perspective of
the architecture, make it almost certain that they are from the same
_atelier_, if not by the hand of the same craftsman.
Two ivories of a totally different style seem to belong to the next
century, but their dates are still a matter of doubt. One is a plaque
in the Treasury of Trèves Cathedral, deeply undercut and full of little
figures and details. Westwood says it represents the arrival of the
Holy Coat to that very Cathedral.[13] The relic is in a casket held by
two ecclesiastics, who sit in a gorgeous car drawn by a pair of horses.
The procession is led by the Emperor Constantine and received at the
church doors by his mother, Helena, who holds a cross in memorial of
her journey to Jerusalem to fetch the True Cross. In the background is
the Porta Nigra, and the nave of a basilica showing an apse.
Unfortunately, there is no proof of this attractive theory, though
the building in the background does resemble the Porta Nigra (still
existing at Trèves) and the basilica there has a very similar apse;
but all Roman architecture imperfectly depicted looks much alike, every
basilica has an apse, and it is not recorded how long the ivory has
been in the Treasury at Trèves. Thus we must be reconciled to call it
by an indeterminate name. It is certainly Byzantine, and most probably
about the seventh century.
If possible there is still greater uncertainty about the second ivory,
which is also of an architectural character and has lately been
acquired by the Louvre authorities. It is without doubt Byzantine,
and represents the conventional type of St. Paul, preaching to a
distinguished and eager crowd. The relief of the ivory is very deep,
and there is a certain boldness in the treatment of the mass of
the crowd, also the city which towers over head, is of a very real
structure and seems intended for some actual city.
Comparing the round arched buildings with the types of architecture on
the sixth and seventh century mosaics, Molinier and Saglio attribute
this ivory to the same period, but Schlumberger cannot believe it to
be more ancient than the tenth century. The deep red colour is the
remnant of the purple stain, which was probably still further enriched
by gilding.
With few exceptions, it has been the common practice to colour ivories
as well as statues, and though much at variance with our modern taste
(which is founded on a mistaken appreciation of the tint of marble
from which the colour has faded), it must have greatly enhanced the
effect, especially in the smaller objects which enter almost into the
province of _bijouterie_.
In the eighth century the iconoclastic[14] troubles commenced; the
movement was at first one of real reform, the charge of idolatry which
had been brought against the Greek Christians by their Mahometan
neighbours was not without foundation, but unfortunately the love of
images was deeply rooted in the heart of the people, who transferred to
these little pictures and images the same homage they had paid to their
local protecting deities in pagan times.
A powerful party, always a minority, gained the ear of the Emperor
Leo III., the Isaurian (717-741), a man of low birth, who had raised
himself to his high station by sheer merit on the field of battle, and
though he has been bitterly abused by his enemies, he appears to have
been quite above the average of imperial character, which, it must be
confessed, did not reach an overpoweringly high level.
This man, having subdued his country’s enemies in the East, turned
his active mind to the annihilation of the unhappy artists and all
their works. At first his measures were moderate, the removing of
pictures out of reach of the lips of the worshippers; but superstition
was so deeply rooted that an abortive revolt broke out, instigated
by the monks, who, besides being the most strenuous advocates for
images, were also the chief manufacturers. This rebellion was easily
suppressed, but it provoked severer measures, an edict was promulgated
that all images were to be destroyed, and the painted walls of the
churches to be covered with plaster. All opposition was punished
by a rapid crescendo of penalties, by imprisonment, mutilation and
excommunication. More revolts followed, Leo became still more angry,
and the next thing we read of is the destruction by fire of the great
Library of Constantinople, guards and all, by order of the Emperor.
The guards were not a matter of importance, as a violent death one way
or other was of small moment in those most unpleasant times; but the
manuscripts were an irreparable loss, almost as terrible as the burning
of the Alexandrian Library by the Mahometans, only a hundred years
before, and for the same unreasonable reason.
These struggles continued, with less or more violence, for nearly 150
years; the choleric Leo was succeeded by his still more violent son,
Constantine V. who, according to the opposite party (which contained
all the chroniclers), was closely related to the Evil One, but he
certainly had great energy, and was probably not so black as he was
painted. He continued the work of his father with great vigour, and, it
must be added, considerable cruelty.
Sometimes there was comparative calm, as when the Empress Irene seized
the reins of government from her unhappy son, Constantine VI., in
797, and issued an edict of tolerance. She was a wonderful woman, and
lived in imperial state for many years, against all law, human and
divine; for she was many bad things, besides being a woman, and as
such, debarred from government. Among her schemes was an alliance with
Charlemagne, to whom she offered her hand; the offer was not accepted,
and soon after she was exiled to Lesbos by another usurper, who,
being a violent iconoclast, immediately restored all the oppressive
laws. With delightful readiness the ecclesiastical General Councils
promulgated decrees for, or against, the cult of images, according to
the taste of the ruling power.
Theophilus, the last of the iconoclastic emperors, was a great builder
of churches and palaces, and none of the iconoclasts went to the
length of forbidding the introduction of the human form, and reducing
decoration to geometrical motives and scroll work, as is the case of
Arabian art.
Theophilus was succeeded by his widow, the Empress Theodora, who
governing in the name of her infant son Michael III., promptly reversed
all the edicts of her husband and his predecessors, and endeared
herself to the Greeks, by the restoration of their beloved images, and
the final defeat of the iconoclastic party, which was accomplished
about 842.
Though there was a sensible difference after this movement, still it
is easy to exaggerate its influence on Byzantine art. The edicts of
the Emperor were not always carried out to the letter, except, perhaps,
in the capital city, and even there the smaller objects were secreted,
and women, always conservative, clung to their _lares_ and _penates_,
keeping up the old observances as much as possible. Many an obstinate
monk took pride and pleasure in setting the law at defiance, carving
little diptychs with the decoration on the inner side, so that they
could be folded together and slipped away in safety.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
14. OLIPHANT
Oriental-Byzantine, ninth and tenth centuries]
The civil art went on uninterruptedly, and in such a luxurious city the
objects of secular use must have been very rich and varied. A large
series of caskets have come down to us, preserved in the treasuries of
churches as shrines for the relics of saints, also large oliphants, or
complete tusks, hollowed out and thickly covered with linked patterns
of strongly oriental style; these were first imported from the East and
afterwards imitated more or less exactly by Byzantine craftsmen. In
early ritual they were used as horns to announce the commencement and
the end of the Mass, and also to contain relics, and it was the latter
use which brought them in such numbers to the West. The miniaturists,
also, continued their art, copying and illustrating texts of Homer and
Virgil and other classical writers.
The iconoclastic movement, though lasting a century and a quarter,
had no permanent effect in checking the natural development of art.
In fact, the greater impetus given to the civil art had rather the
effect of purifying the Byzantine style by constant reference to the
antique, and prepared the way for the Renaissance of the tenth century.
Byzantine art is still so little known that it is probable that many
ivories now classed in the tenth may belong to the preceding century.
Molinier attributes even the Vienna and Bargello diptych (Fig. 5) to
the mid iconoclastic period, to that lull in the storm during the
reign of the Empress Irene (end of eighth century), whose portrait
he considers it to be. This ivory, though more probably of the sixth
century, has some slight likeness in the wide face and full neck to
the two busts of Christ and the symbolic angel of St. Matthew in the
Library, Ravenna (the eagle of St. John is in the Victoria and Albert
Museum). These must be classed with another ivory of this period in
the Louvre, a figure of Christ standing under a richly decorated arch,
but the low forehead and staring eyes, with the pompous attitude, in
imitation of the beautiful British Museum angel, make it positively
ridiculous.
Another plaque in the Berlin Museum, the only dated ivory of the ninth
century, represents an emperor being crowned by the Virgin, and bears
the name of a “Basileus Leo.” The early emperors of this name are too
ancient, and the last three were rabid iconoclasts, so that brings
it to the Emperor Leo VI., crowned in 886. Unfortunately this work,
which should be most useful for comparison, is of rough technique, and
evidently a provincial production, for no craftsman of the great
metropolis could have produced such uncultivated work, even on the
morrow of the iconoclastic crisis.
II. BYZANTINE CASKETS.
We owe to the series of secular caskets most of our knowledge of this
transitional period. They do not appear to have been articles of great
luxury and were usually made of bone and sometimes indifferently
carved. The fashion continued for several hundred years, and side by
side with these secular caskets we have others decorated with scenes
from Old Testament history, which, though very few in number at first,
become more frequent as time goes on. The religious caskets have many
details in common with the secular, but draw their inspiration from a
different source.
There is great similarity in the design of the secular caskets, the box
itself being made of wood and covered with ivory plaques. The lids are
either in the shape of a truncated pyramid, and hinged, or flat and
sliding into grooves. The decoration consists of an elaborate border
surrounding either long scenic plaques, as in the _Veroli_ casket in
the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig. 15), or more often little squares
containing a single figure (Bargello, etc.). The borders show strong
oriental influence, and invariably consist of ringed rosettes connected
by a pointed leaf; these rosettes sometimes alternate with coin-like
medallions, and there are occasionally additional bands of varying
pattern, as on the _Volterra_ casket (late Spitzer Collection) at the
Musée de Cluny.
The subjects are a proof of the still lingering power of classical
antiquity, and of the infiltration of oriental designs. They are either
taken from ancient myths (often very imperfectly understood by the
adaptor), or from scenes in the hippodrome or circus (_Volterra_);
perhaps also from the statues, part of the Grecian loot that
Constantine had brought from Rome to decorate his new city.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
15. THE VEROLI CASKET
Byzantine, ninth and tenth centuries]
Most of these caskets are composed in the gayest frame of mind;
on the beautiful ivory _Veroli_ casket the little loves, on the
light fantastic toe, dance to the harping of poor, melancholy, old
Polyphemus, who is compelled to cease his solitary lament and play
hornpipes and jigs for the benefit of wild Bacchantes, who whirl round
and round till their drapery is tossed out like foam. It is amusing
to see these same ladies on the casket at Cividale, no longer carved
with delicate finish, but angular and rough, the drapery flying out
like wire, and the development of the muscles rivalling that of a prima
ballerina.
The maker of the _Pirano_ casket in the Vienna Museum imitated the
_Veroli_ in many things, as the putti and the panther, and the group
of Mars caressing Venus under the chin, in the good old-fashioned
Brescia diptych way, also the peculiar treatment of the hair in tiny
knobby ringlets, which is found again on the Bologna casket, and on two
most interesting plaques in the British Museum. One plaque represents
_Christ freeing the Souls in Hades_, and the other _The Nativity_. On
the first there is a group of little child-souls with polished round
muscles and knobby hair, also the hair of the angels in both the scenes
is of the same character, the rest of the technique has little to
distinguish it from the so-called X-XI century type; but the conception
of the subject is not the ordinary stereotyped one of later years, and
those few peculiarities of style have such a marked connection with the
_Veroli_ casket, that Graeven considers it likely that they both came
from the same _atelier_, and may, perhaps, be dated about the middle of
the ninth century.
Before pointing out the various similarities between these secular
caskets, and those with religious subjects, it would be well to inquire
into the ancestry of the separate styles.
The classical designs on the secular caskets are more completely
conventionalized than would be the result of direct imitation of
antique originals by later craftsmen; and the coin-like borders give a
clue to finding out what were their actual models. They must have been
inspired by the _repoussé_ designs on gold and silver plate, it being a
very common practice, in all ages, to insert coins round the edges of
precious vessels. The peculiar tapering ankles and delicate wrists are
another proof of some other technique intervening between the marble
sculpture and the ivories. The tendency of marble to crack if exposed
to too great a weight, led to a sturdiness in all detached forms,
and not even in the bronze statues are such exaggeratedly slender
extremities to be found.
Ancient records often tell of large masses of plate being presented to
churches in the West. A single gift to St. Germain at Auxerre in the
seventh century, consisted of one hundred silver vessels, including two
great dishes decorated with reliefs from the Æneid, and a third with
the “Rape of Europa,” and having Greek inscriptions. If there was such
a mass of plate in the West, the richness of Constantinople in gold and
silver vessels must have been simply fabulous. The descriptions of the
Byzantine chroniclers, and the figures given of the Venetian share in
the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, are astounding.
The silver casket at Anagni forms a connecting link; it is the same
shape and style as the ivory caskets, and the little silver reliefs are
mounted in the same manner with border strips.
The caskets with religious subjects are derived from the miniatures in
ancient and contemporary manuscripts, as has been abundantly proved by
the complete correspondence of existing plaques and miniatures. The
Victoria and Albert Museum possesses an excellent example in the strip
of ivory, with Joshua receiving envoys from the people of Gibeon, which
is taken almost line for line from two miniatures in the famous Joshua
Roll in the Vatican Library; except that in the translation of the
painting into sculpture, certain details had to be simplified, and the
serried ranks of Joshua’s soldiers were reduced to a faithful copy of
the forward group.
A tiny plaque in the Grüne Gewölbe at Dresden is another instance
of this connection with the manuscripts. It is one of two surviving
portions of a casket decorated with the life of Joseph, and is
directly inspired by the wonderful Genesis codex at Vienna. This
codex is especially interesting as showing the artist’s delight in
scenes of domestic affection; the picture, which coincides with the
ivory carving, illustrates the departure of Joseph to get news of his
brethren. His father with a stately gesture bids him go, and as he goes
he turns to kiss his little brother Benjamin, who follows him a little
way. The sculptor has taken the moment of the kiss, and the gentleness
of the action is like the little domestic scene on the casket in the
Museo Kircheriano at Rome (Fig. 16).
[Illustration: DR. H. GRAEVEN PHOTO.] [MUSEO KIRCHERIANO, ROME
16. FRONT OF A CASKET. SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF DAVID
Byzantine, ninth century]
The carvings on this casket give a graphic account of the early life
and adventures of David, and are most probably derived from some
lost manuscript of the Book of Samuel. The active little figures are
exceedingly droll, and it is difficult not to think that a little of
the gay secular spirit had crept into these more sober scenes. The lamb
which sits up and begs while David pipes is particularly engaging. The
front side of the sloping lid is given up to most tragic scenes. _The
Massacre of the Innocents_, and the _Murder of Zachariah, the High
Priest_, “_killed between the temple and the altar_.” The inscription
tells us that the casket was intended as a marriage gift to a Basileus
and Basilissa from another wedded pair, the portraits all being on the
top.
The various details which the two series of caskets have in common,
prove they belong to the same period. On the _Veroli_ casket (Fig. 15),
the group of men stoning the bull which bears away Europa corresponds
with a miniature in the Joshua Roll, which depicts the stoning of
the captive people of Achan. The rosette border is also found on a
twelfth century casket with half-length figures of saints in the
Bargello. On some of these caskets the plaques are decorated with
designs taken bodily from Oriental textiles and carvings; the smaller
_Volterra_ casket in the Musée de Cluny is a case in point, and it has
the additional charm of an openwork border of maple leaves on a gilt
background.
Some writers call these caskets Italo-Byzantine because a large number
have been found in the treasuries of Italian cathedrals, but their
ancestry is thoroughly Byzantine. It is not impossible that some few
examples were made in the West, as several stone reliefs have been
found in Venetia, clearly dating from the first decade of the eleventh
century, and ornamented with the same classical subjects, confused in
the same way with foreign elements, and surrounded by the customary
rosette border, and which are most probably copies of these Byzantine
fancy goods.
The Throne of St. Peter in the apse of his church in Rome, is made
up in the same way with little plaques representing the _Labours of
Hercules_ and other purely pagan subjects. The ivory carvings belong
to two periods, one, admittedly, of the ninth century when the Throne
was restored, and the others are traditionally supposed to date from
the lifetime of the apostle. It was inclosed 200 years ago in a hideous
casing, and no close examination is permitted. If this chair is really
of great antiquity, even if not so early as the first century, it would
be a great support to Venturi’s assumption that all these secular
caskets belong really to classical antiquity, and are of late Roman
origin. There is a beautiful casket in the Cathedral of Troyes, of the
tenth or eleventh century, which was sent back by Garnier de Traisnel,
Bishop of Troyes, and Almoner to the Crusaders. Garnier died in the
East, but sent home his share of the spoil from Constantinople. It is
stained a rich purple and evidently belonged to the Basileus, who is
depicted on horseback.
III. THE BYZANTINE RENAISSANCE.
The Golden Age of Byzantine Art commences about the beginning of the
tenth century, and, roughly speaking, coincides with the rule of the
great Macedonian dynasty, a period when the warrior emperors, usurpers
or otherwise, kept the invading barbarians at bay.
The Byzantine chroniclers expatiate at great length on the unparalleled
luxury of the Court and how the “Sacred Palace” was filled with art
treasures; and they also tell us that Constantine VII., Porphrygenitus
(911-959), was an enthusiastic amateur, and even employed his “sacred”
fingers in carving and painting beautiful objects; it was about the
only thing he did do, for the government was entirely taken out of his
hands by a series of usurpers who were nominally his colleagues.
Ivory carving was only one small portion of this great stream of
decorative work, but an important part, as there was practically no
sculpture in stone. In the new basilica at Constantinople were some
animals carved on the marble fountains, and a few inferior bas-reliefs
have been found in the Crimea and Mount Athos, but the technique is
merely an enlargement of the tiny reliefs, with a complete loss of that
delicacy and loving finish which is the greatest charm of the ivory
craft.
The number of examples of carved ivory during the tenth and eleventh
centuries is so great that it is most difficult to make a selection.
The Reliquary of the True Cross in the Franciscan Church at Cortona
is valuable for comparison with other carvings of the tenth century,
for it is dated by an inscription mentioning the Basileus Nicephorus,
Conqueror of the Barbarians, who can be no other than Nicephorus Phocas
(963-969). The reliquary is divided in the usual manner into four
compartments by the arms of the great central crucifix, and owing to
the shallowness of the space the figures are not so disproportionately
tall as was mostly the case. In the research for dignity and reverence
the figures became less and less earthly, the shoulders sloping away
to nothing, and a growing tendency crept in to exaggerate the height
out of all proportion; also the calm expression on the delicate oval
faces grew more and more solemn, till on some of the later ivories it
is positively lugubrious. Yet the quiet grace and exquisite dignity
of a figure like that of the Virgin on the Harbaville Triptych (Fig.
17), is hardly to be found in the finest Italian art. The pose of this
figure and that of John the Forerunner, Πρόδρομος, are almost identical
with those on the Cortona Reliquary; the Virgin’s gesture of adoration
is simple and spontaneous, and it is only when it is repeated by St.
John that the balance of the pattern becomes too exact and pains the
eye. The figure of Christ, grandly posed on the highbacked throne, is
the type of nearly every other representation of the Saviour throughout
the whole period (cf. Fig. 19) and traces back directly to the Roman
official diptychs. The drapery is elegant and well considered, though
the folds have a hard flatness in spite of the soft finish of the
technique. The features inherit much from the antique, the well-cut
brow and deeply set eyes, but the noses have increased in length and
have that slight curve at the tip which is so characteristic, and
becomes so pronounced, in later Byzantine Art. The fine heads, framed
in their rugged mane of hair, are very picturesque, but there is such
a strong family likeness among them, that it is quite refreshing to
meet a bald forehead like that of St. Paul or St. John Theologus,
here represented as an aged man and not as the beardless stripling
of Western art. Above all, it is the hands and the well-proportioned
muscular feet, which show the power of the real artist escaping from
the conventionality of his subject. On the back of the panel he has
freed himself entirely from the spell of classical antiquity and drunk
deeply of new oriental ideas, creating a most decorative design,
illustrating the “Triumph of the Cross,” which rises, ornamented with
roses, above the flowering earth, stretching up to the skies, which
are thickly covered with stars, and bear the Greek inscription _Jesus
Christ Victorious_. Two tall cypresses, tightly bound by the symbolical
vine and by ivy, bow before it, whilst from the ground spring small
trees and reeds, among which wild animals run in and out.
[Illustration: A. GIRAUDON PHOTO.] [LOUVRE, PARIS
17. TRIPTYCH D’HARBAVILLE
Byzantine, tenth century]
The trees may be contrasted with the fruitful olives on the Bargello
plaque of the Ascension (Fig. 18). The composition of this scene is
grand in character, in spite of its small size, and there is great
freedom of movement in the lower group, each pose being cleverly
characterized; the grouping is scarcely freer in the Italian conception
of this subject, and the upraised hand of the apostle on the Virgin’s
left is to be seen, centuries later, in the famous “Assumption of the
Virgin” by Titian. There are many other plaques with scenic pictures.
The elaborate carving of the _Death of the Virgin_ is still fixed to
the Bamberg Missal, which belonged to Cunigunda, wife of the Emperor
Henry II. (1002-1028). The scene is crowded, and takes place under a
richly pierced canopy. Christ holds the Infant Soul of the Virgin,
whilst two angels with veiled hands fly down to receive it.
Perhaps the most beautiful of all these pictorial sculptures is a
diptych now unfortunately divided. Each leaf has two scenes, the first,
representing the _Holy Women kneeling before the risen Christ_ and the
_Resurrection_, is at Dresden, while the other, with the _Crucifixion_
and the _Deposition_, is in the Provincial Museum at Hanover. The
various scenes are treated with much freedom, and the proportions are
excellent. It is enough to glance at the appalling length of the two
Maries in a twelfth century plaque with the _Resurrection_ (Bargello)
to realize how much we have to be thankful for in the earlier periods.
[Illustration: DR. H. GRAEVEN PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE
18. ASCENSION
Byzantine, eleventh century]
There are a large number of triptychs[15] all more or less of the
Harbaville school. A fine one at the Louvre of _Christ_ and _St.
Theodore_ has lost the second wing, and of another still finer one,
only the splendidly carved wings remain, widely separated now, one
being in Vienna and the other in the Doge’s Palace at Venice. Several
of these little shrines inclose a group of the _Virgin and Child_,
the two most beautiful being in the Episcopal Museums of Utrecht and
Liège. Count Strogonoff in his interesting collection at Rome has a
particularly fine seated _Virgin and Child_. The whole pose is most
pleasing and the Infant Christ on her knee has a far more childish face
than usual, the Holy Child being more often like a little man, raising
his hand to bless with exaggerated dignity. But the ineradicable love
of ostentation and luxury leads the artist to diminish the importance
of a really dignified figure by adding a mass of gigantic and
over-decorated accessories, and the legs of the throne are wrought with
more exactitude than he bestows on the robe of the central figure.
[Illustration: G. ROSSI PHOTO.] [TRIVULZIO COLLECTION, MILAN
19. CHRIST ENTHRONED
Byzantine, eleventh century]
There are many other interesting ivories in this fine collection, which
even contains one of the lost plaques from the Throne of Maximian.
Among them is a noble figure of _Christ Teaching_ which might well
correspond to the _John Baptist_ at Liverpool, one of the gems of the
Mayer Collection. John bears a roll with the text commencing, “Behold
the Lamb of God,” which would refer to the Christ on the opposite leaf
of a diptych. The Liverpool Museum also possesses a fine triptych,
with Christ on the Cross, the Virgin and St. John. This is a type
which seized the imagination of the German people, who constantly
repeated it, losing, perhaps, in technique, but gaining in vigour and
expression, as will be seen on referring to Fig. 24.
The plaque in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque nationale,
Paris (Fig. 20), is a fitting end to an account of the ivories of the
Byzantine Renaissance. It represents the _Emperor Romanus IV. and the
Empress Eudoxia being crowned by Christ_. It is doubly interesting,
as through its certain date (the Emperor’s reign only lasting four
years 1067-1071), we can compare it with earlier work, as the Cortona
Reliquary or the Harbaville triptych (Fig. 17), and see that after
more than a hundred years the art had not changed for better or worse.
This plaque is also interesting from its artistic value, which is very
high, the figure of Christ being one of the finest in the whole range
of Byzantine ivory carving. We can see that the artist was perfectly
capable of rendering drapery in a soft and pliant manner, yet the
tyranny of the court etiquette compelled him to envelope the Basileus
and Basilissa in the stiffest of sheaths, covered with a regular mosaic
of jewels; and to pay honour to the Saviour he was obliged to place
under His feet that triple platform of hideous device.
[Illustration: A. GIRAUDON PHOTO.] [CABINET DES MÉDAILLES,
BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, PARIS
20. ROMANUS IV. AND EUDOXIA CROWNED BY CHRIST
Byzantine, eleventh century]
“The composition of the figures is not the invention of the painters,
but the law of tradition of the Catholic Church.” These are the words
of a decree of the Nicene Council in the eighth century, and it is not
surprising that these compositions, settled on theological grounds were
inclined to be unvarying and hieratic, the wonder is that they have so
many artistic qualities. Another bond for the unfortunate artist was a
certain work called “A Guide to Painting,” in which minute regulations
are laid down for every detail of form and colouring. It does not
appear to have been in force till after this period of renaissance,
but a strict adherence to these formulæ is, without doubt, the reason
why it is practically impossible to tell a nineteenth from a twelfth
century mosaic by reference alone to style.
This great stream of art and culture went on uninterruptedly, no matter
what were the palace intrigues or the sudden changes of government.
One winter night a great cry is raised, the Emperor, the brave general
whose glorious campaigns had enabled the city to increase its wealth
and commerce a thousandfold, had been slain, foully murdered by order
of his wife and his ancient friend. Yet there is no revolt among the
people; what is it to them? A few dangerous partizans are killed,
and later a few of the hired murderers, and the wife in question,
are offered up to the Church in expiation of the usurper’s crime. In
the evening Nicephorus Phocas is Emperor, and by the next morning
John Zimisces is crowned and reigning in his stead. Both the emperors
were good generals, and could keep the barbarians at bay, and, for
the matter of that, they were both flagrant usurpers, the rightful
sovereigns, Basil and Constantine, being kept half prisoners in the
palace, while their so-called colleagues ruled the country; and if
freedom from invasion, wealth, and munificent patronage of the arts
are signs of good government, then these usurpers were pattern rulers.
This was by no means the case with Basil II., who, at the mature age
of sixty flung off the tutelage of his colleagues and plunged into a
wild career of conquest, earning for himself not only the title of
“Destroyer of the Bulgarians,” but the hearty hatred of his subjects at
home and in the provinces.
With Basil we must leave the Byzantine Empire, which had reached its
apogee of political power and art production. It was centuries before
the internal decay made itself felt, but the great edifice never
recovered the shock of the invasion and sack of Constantinople by the
Crusaders in 1204, and falling bit by bit before the attacks of the
Mahometans, finally fell an easy prey to the Seljuk Turks in 1453.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Second leaf in the Royal Museum of Decorative and Industrial Art,
Brussels.
[9] See the plaque with the _Judgment of Solomon_ in the Louvre.
[10] A round tomb with a cupola has been excavated in the Via
Praestina, and the circular Church of S. Costanzo is the tomb of a
daughter of the Emperor Constantine.
[11] _Les Tapisseries Coptes_, par M. Gerspach, Paris, 1890.
[12] Venturi considers that the Throne was made for another Maximian,
Archbishop of Constantinople 345, and being taken in the course of
time to Venetia, is identical with that mentioned in the Chronicle of
the Deacon John; who tells of an ivory throne sent in December, 1001,
by the Doge Pietro Orseolo, to the Emperor Otto III., who was then
residing in Ravenna, and gave it to the Cathedral. There is no mention
of an ivory throne in the Cathedral before this date. Cf. _Storia dell’
arte italiana_, vol. i., p. 466. Ricci connects this throne with that
of St. Mark in Grado. Cf. _L’arte italiana decorativa e industriale_,
vol. vii., p. 104.
[13] This coat is said to be the one “without seam,” for which the
soldiers cast lots, and which has an undoubted history from the time of
the Empress Helena, in the fourth century.
[14] From εἰκὼν, a likeness, and κλάω, I break in pieces.
[15] Full list given by Molinier, _Les Arts appliqués_, vol. i.
CHAPTER III
LOMBARDIC, ANGLO-SAXON, CARLOVINGIAN AND GERMAN IVORIES
I. LOMBARD IVORY CARVINGS
We have seen how Constantinople, or the “New Rome,” became the centre
of the new Christian World as Alexandria had been of the Hellenistic;
and for many centuries the riches and splendour of this most luxurious
city shone out on the barbarian nations, as a lodestar for their
imagination and a pattern for all civilization and culture. Byzantine,
being an intrusive art in these countries, did not entirely crush
out native effort, but modified the design and vastly improved the
technique. Each imitator introduced more of himself and got further
from the Greek original, so there arose a composite style, strongly
influenced by the Byzantines, yet bearing in it the seeds of a national
art.
Leaving aside the large number of Syro-Byzantine and other Eastern
ivories, we must pass on to Italy, where the remains of the old Latin
art still lingered, though terribly debased and mingled with that of
the barbarian Lungobards. By the seventh century sculpture was reduced
to a deplorable state, and as Cattaneo says,[16] it is most unlikely
that the Ravenna carved sarcophagi were really made at this period;
they more probably belonged to ancient burials, with the new name
carved on the lid.
Even in ivory carving, which is always behind the age, we find an
almost ludicrous barbarity. An ivory tablet of the eighth century
in the Bologna Museum is a fair example of this mixed style; it has
three tiers of scenes from the _Nativity_, and shows strong Byzantine
influence, yet there is something in the treatment of the drapery,
barbaric as it is, which seems to lead on to the later Italian style
of the eleventh century, which definitely connects with the earliest
Gothic art in France.[17] An example of this may be seen in a plaque in
the Bargello, representing Christ in glory surrounded by angels.
By far the most celebrated example of this long period is the
diptych of Rambona in the Vatican, which in spite of the miserable
relief and the rudeness of the technique, plainly shows the two
influences, Lombardic and Byzantine. At the foot of the cross is a
large representation of Romulus and Remus with the Roman wolf. At
the top the familiar pair of flying angels, much curtailed, bear a
medallion containing a bust of Christ raising His hand to bless in
the Greek manner. On the second leaf the Virgin is enthroned between
two cherubim, the lower portion being ornamented with fragmentary
scroll-work of a northern type, surrounding figures of the saints of
more or less Byzantine design. An important inscription runs between
stating that the diptych was carved for a certain Ageltruda, who was
most probably the wife of Guy, Duke of Camerino and Spoleto, King of
Italy, and Emperor in 891.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are two noteworthy examples
of Lombard Art; a strange tall-figured group of _The Presentation of
Christ in the Temple_, with architecture of a strongly marked Lombard
type, and a plaque with a representation of _Joseph’s Dream_. Both of
these are carved in a large style with open surfaces, but show a very
rudimentary notion of drapery. The latter is especially interesting
as the design is almost exactly the same as in the elaborate series
of plaques from the _Paliotto_ or shrine in the Cathedral at Salerno
(eleventh to twelfth century). The subjects of these carvings are
taken from the life of Christ and from the Old Testament, and show an
unusually full series of scenes from Genesis, with most picturesque
representations of the creation. The fluency of the design and
technique of these plaques is a strange and sudden oasis in a desert of
barbarism. If they were made at Salerno, as seems likely, the technique
of some school in the old Greek city may have lingered on, receiving
new life from the encouragement of the Normans, who certainly showed
themselves ardent patrons of the arts in Sicily.
There had been little encouragement of the arts elsewhere in Italy.
Several objects of goldsmith’s work and ivory in the Basilica at
Monza are said to have belonged to Theodolinda, the Lombard queen, in
addition to the famous ivory diptych sent to her by Gregory the Great,
which was of an earlier date. Two hundred years later Popes Adrian and
Leo III., seconded Charlemagne in his efforts to restore learning and
culture; and finally Didier, the great abbot of Monte Cassino in 1018,
and afterwards Pope, was also a great admirer and benefactor of the
arts.
It is not surprising that poor Italy made so little progress, for all
this time she was ravaged, first by the Saracens, who invaded the
mainland from Sicily, which they had conquered from the Greeks, and
then by the Normans, who in the eleventh century, consolidated their
power in South Italy, and afterwards in Sicily, under Robert Guiscard.
II. ANGLO-SAXON IVORY CARVINGS.
The earliest carvings in the Northern countries still belonged to the
type of geometric and interlaced patterns roughly cut in walrus or
whalebone. The panels from the sarcophagus of St. Caletricus, Bishop
of Chartres in the sixth century, is an example of this rough kind of
decoration, which is also found on objects from the Germanic tombs.
The Anglo-Saxons were far more advanced, owing to the training of the
Keltic schools. In the British Museum there is a whalebone casket,
probably made in Northumbria in the eighth century. It is ornamented
with scenes from the Sagas, the Holy Scriptures and from Roman legends;
this range of subjects gives a clue to the explanation of the style,
which is Norse, influenced by Byzantine religious art, but the latter
has been so transformed by the unskilful craftsman that it is hardly
recognizable. The whole casket is bordered by a Runic inscription
relating the capture of the whale which supplied the bone; it has been
translated thus:
“The whale’s bones from the fishes’ flood,
I lifted on Fergen’s Hill:
He was dashed to death in his gambols
As a-ground he swam in the shallows.”
The name Fergen occurs on a charter of the eleventh century, and has
been identified with Ferry Hill in the county of Durham. The front
panel is divided into two, and represents the daughter of Herodias
receiving John Baptist’s head, the headless body lying on the ground,
and the Wise Men offering gifts, the word “Magi” being written in runes
above them. All that remains of the Byzantine model of the Virgin and
Child are two nimbed heads, one below the other, a lesser and a greater
disk sheltered by a typical Byzantine _ciborium_ or four-pillared
canopy. One end has a picture of Romulus and Remus and their wolf,
and the rest is decorated with scenes from the Sagas. The background
of these reliefs is so crowded by small objects and fragments of
scroll-work that the scenes are difficult to make out; but it is
extremely interesting as a sample of English art in the time of the
Heptarchy.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
21. ADORATION OF THE MAGI
Anglo-Saxon, eleventh century]
_The Adoration of the Magi_ in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig.
21), has been also attributed to this period, but Westwood’s opinion
that it is of the eleventh century is more probably correct, the
workmanship being most delicate and finished, and the design closely
connected with the pictures in the tenth century Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts, which have the same crinkled edges to the drapery, large
heads and protruding eyes, with a sharply accentuated pupil. In the
relief the modelling of the face, with the hollow between the wide
cheekbones and the lips gives the face quite a Hibernian appearance
which is visible in several other ivories of this class, notably in a
most pathetic _Deposition_ in the same museum.
The richly embroidered dress and tiny feet and hands show Byzantine
influence, but the architecture, with the twin arch windows is
thoroughly Saxon. The mysterious man on the roof is a curious genre
addition, and the owl, most likely typifies the night. The hunting
scenes clearly show the two art waves, the lions are unintelligently
copied from the conventional Byzantine animal, but very considerable
first-hand information is shown in the drawing of the boars and bears,
with which the craftsman probably had some personal acquaintance.
_The Deposition_ referred to above is of the eleventh century, and has
a curious prototype in the Arundel Psalter (No. 60, British Museum),
with the same attenuated anatomy and finely plaited drapery. The design
is instinct with the spirit of these Anglo-Saxons and their Keltic
teachers, as is seen in the mournful expression of the faces, and the
utter deadness of Christ’s body as He falls forward from the cross,
hanging His threadlike arms. The whole feeling is of suffering and
sadness, very different from the cheerful scenes on the earlier, and
the calm, unmoved solemnity of the later Byzantine art. This research
for expression was a special feature of the more emotional Germanic
nations, and in spite of the almost comic peculiarities, there is a
sincere reverence and religious feeling, which is almost unknown in any
other school of ivory carving.
The series of chessmen made of walrus ivory that were found in the
Island of Lewis should be mentioned here; they have stumpy figures and
fine rugged countenances, and the thrones are carved with the elaborate
tracery so typical of this artistic movement. The game of chess was
early brought from the East, as was the game of draughts, and many
pieces are to be found in the various museums of Europe. In addition
to the chessmen, the British Museum possesses a fine set of draughts
deeply carved in Romanesque style, with men and animals.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a specimen of a large
and elaborate set of chessmen, having tiers of attendants round the
principal figure. A charming story is told in one of the _Chansons de
Gestes_, and was repeatedly carved on mirror covers and other small
objects in the fourteenth century, showing the popularity of the game.
It tells how the crusader Huon de Bordeaux was taken prisoner by the
Saracen admiral and condemned to death; one chance was given him, that
he should play a game of chess with the admiral’s daughter, the most
expert player of her day, the stakes being his life or the lady’s
hand; but it seems the lady looked too much in his eyes and too little
at the game, and the result was one more convert to the Christian faith.
The tracery which decorates the thrones of the chessmen is a small
example of the elaborate interlaced scroll-work, which is a leading
feature in Keltic and Anglo-Saxon work. In the manuscripts it is often
reduced to a series of calligraphic flourishes, but it also develops
into serpents and dragons inextricably woven together, and, later, more
varied animal forms are introduced and even human figures are seen
crushed in the serpentine rings. Forms from vegetation are rarely seen,
and the introduction of the acanthus into these intricacies is due to
the Carlovingian scribes of the ninth century and may be seen in the
Bible written for Charles the Bald.
Several objects decorated with the earlier forms of this wild tracery
are found in the great abbeys of Germany and Eastern France, and are
thought to have been made in Great Britain or Ireland and brought
over by the throng of missionaries who flocked on to the continent to
convert the wild tribes of Frisia, Germany and Switzerland, bearing
with them culture and learning.
Little Ireland in early days was a centre of artistic diffusion, almost
more important for the Northern nations than that of Constantinople.
Owing to freedom from invasion, Christianity and civilization had
continued to flourish and the remnant of the old Latin literature
was carefully preserved. Not long after the death of St. Patrick, the
Irish Church, having increased in strength and learning, sent forth the
famous St. Columba to minister to the hordes of barbarians who were
over-running Britain. St. Columba met with great success and founded
several large monasteries which became powerful centres of religion and
learning in Scotland and England. For hundreds of years the schools of
Ireland continued in great repute, numerous bands of missionaries were
sent across the sea to convert the Germanic tribes on the continent.
Most famous among these was St. Columbanus, who laboured in the East of
France for many years, and afterwards in Switzerland and Italy, dying
in 615 at the monastery he had founded at Bobbio. Everywhere these
monks went they took with them the seeds of art and learning, beautiful
illuminated manuscripts and other small works of art, which formed an
inexhaustible store of _motifs_ for the sculptors and goldsmiths of
the following centuries. One of the disciples of Columbanus, St. Gall,
who was called the “Apostle of Switzerland,” founded there the great
monastery named after him, which became a most flourishing art centre
in later years.
The Anglo-Saxons were not idle, and in the eighth century St. Boniface
and many others pierced far into the wild forests of Germany, founding
the great monastic establishments which exist to this day. This was
not a fleeting movement, but a close relation was kept up between
England and the continent till well into the eleventh century.
III. THE CARLOVINGIAN RENAISSANCE.
Charlemagne, crowned emperor in 800, if not perhaps the wondrous
hero of tradition, was a very powerful factor in the history and
civilization of his day, and exerted all his energy to introduce order
and learning among the vast hordes of barbarians who more or less
willingly acknowledged his rule. He stirred up all latent powers,
introduced new ideas and stimulated an admiration for all Roman
culture, being dazzled quite as much by the actual pomp and splendour
of the Constantinopolitan court as by the memories of ancient Rome. He
invited learned men from the East and the West, but the most famous
were Alcuin, who was born at York, and his pupil, Eginhardt, who became
Secretary and Chronicler to Charlemagne and his successor.
The Carlovingian renaissance was a most composite production. Byzantine
Art had long been known to the Northern races, and at this time its
influence was spread still further by the presence of artists exiled
by the iconoclasts; but the Anglo-Saxon influence was even stronger,
encouraged as it was by the bands of missionaries, and by Alcuin
and his followers. To these intermingled strains must be added the
independent Gallo-Roman reminiscence, the study of the monuments,
and also a strange, but undeniable Oriental tendency, arising from
communications with the East and the Moors in Spain. This renaissance,
though to a certain extent artificial, lasted for nearly three
centuries and affected the civilization of the whole of Western Europe.
Carlovingian art flourished for centuries in Germany, but the invasions
of the Normans checked for a while the artistic progress of Northern
France. What little art they had was in much the same Norse style, but
freshly barbaric and not like that of the British Isles, which had
undergone centuries of incubation and had the additional Latin element.
It was to this Anglo-Saxon Art, conventional as it had become, the
human form often being reduced to a geometrical figure, that the
Carlovingian craftsmen turned for inspiration. Two classes of ivory
carving arose, one copied almost directly from the miniatures in the
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, which were themselves derived from late Roman
types; and the second following more closely in the steps of the
Byzantines.
All through the Carlovingian period there is a close connection between
the illuminator and the ivory carver, the latter trying to treat
his subjects more in the manner of a painter, enlarged the cycle of
Christian representations and began to break with tradition and recover
his liberty. The figures still, in many cases, retain the heavy and
rather crushed forms of degenerate Roman art; and in the endeavour to
impart deeper expression the proportions were often spoiled, delicate
parts, as the features being delineated in undue size, and the research
for originality often leading to violent and exaggerated attitudes, and
to the overloading of detail, yet all the gestures are instinct with
life, and full of a naïve directness of action.
A small plaque in the museum at Zurich (Fig. 22) is a good illustration
of the immense influence of the miniatures on ivory carving. The Book
of Psalms was especially popular, and this plaque is a word for word
translation of certain verses of the XXVIIth Psalm (XXVI. in the
Vulgate) into plastic form. _v._ 2. “When the wicked, even my enemies
and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.”
(The crowd of warriors, some of whom have fallen). _v._ 5. “For in the
time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his
tabernacle he shall hide me: he shall set me up upon a rock.” (David
is seen being welcomed into the Tabernacle, which stands on a rock).
Part of _v._ 6. “Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices
of joy” (altar and lamb). _V._ 10. “When my father and mother forsake
me then the Lord will take me up” (in the right corner a man and woman
turn away from a child). The hand above is typical of the protection of
God which is asked for throughout the psalm. The slight and thin-ankled
figures, and the continuous method of narration are characteristic of
the miniatures, which originally derived their technique from late
Roman Art, and carried on the old system of an unbroken series of
scenes which is to be found in the _bas-reliefs_ of Trajan’s Column. In
the Utrecht Psalter (Anglo-Saxon) is an almost identical illustration
of this psalm, which proves that this plaque was copied from it or some
analogous manuscript, as the Bodley Psalter (No. 603) in the British
Museum. These Psalters have furnished a model for another of these
scenic psalms, carved on a plaque set in the magnificent binding of the
_Psalter of Charles the Bald_, in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris.
The manuscript was written between the years 842-869, and there is no
reason to think that the jewelled and ivory cover is not contemporary.
One side gives a graphic picture of the LVIth Psalm, and the other
represents Nathan telling David the story of the little ewe lamb (2
Sam. xii.). The Louvre possesses a plaque, also of the ninth century,
representing the interview of Abner and Joab (2 Sam. ii.), a subject
by no means of general interest, and unlikely to have a plastic type,
which proves still further the custom of copying the miniatures with
more or less servility.
[Illustration: [SCHWEIZERISCHER LANDESMUSEUM, ZURICH
22. ILLUSTRATION OF PSALM XXVII
Carlovingian, ninth century]
One more scenic plaque in the Louvre is of interest, not so much in
connection with the MSS., but from the strong resemblance to the
Probianus diptych (Fig. 2), especially in the lower scene, where the
figures raise their hands to Solomon on his judgment seat. On the
second half David is dictating his psalms to an assembly of clerks.
It is difficult to class the ivories of this long period, but the
majority are of German origin. Art and culture were a great deal
dependent on the Court, which had the effect of bringing into line
the work of craftsmen of very varying nationalities. Here also was
a fear lest the people should worship the images themselves, but an
iconoclastic spirit never arose, and these numerous carvings, besides
adding to the sumptuousness of the cult, were used for the instruction
of the unlettered.
Ivory was classed with the precious metals, and much sought after for
ecclesiastical purposes, the great abbeys of eastern France and Germany
became regular workshops, making a large number of exquisite objects in
goldsmith’s work and ivory. We are given a little side-light on the use
of ivory in a letter of Eginhardt to his son, in which he mentions that
he is sending him a carved ivory model of classical architecture that
he should better understand certain passages in Vitruvius.
The mention of the work done in the monasteries brings us to the Abbey
of St. Gall and the monk Tuotilo, who has long been the hero of the
craft; but, alas, the charming picture that the chronicler Ekkehardt
gives, a hundred years later, of this Leonardo among craftsmen is
utterly without foundation; that there was a monk Tuotilo at the end of
the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries the records of the
monastery tell us, and a note added by a later hand says that he was
learned and a sculptor.
Ekkehardt spoils his argument in favour of Tuotilo by attributing
to him too many perfections, and by finally quoting the opinion of
Charlemagne, who had been dead and buried nearly a hundred years. It
is very sad to have to give up the one real individual who greets
us on the rather weary path of anonymity. The fine book cover, one
leaf of which Ekkehardt attributes to Tuotilo (Fig. 23), is still
safely preserved in the Abbey of St. Gall, but the two leaves appear
to be by the same hand, though there is every reason to attribute
the workmanship to the ninth century. On the upper leaf Christ is
represented in glory, youthful and beardless in type, as is often the
case in Carlovingian ivories which come from the Germanic part of
the empire. There was a flourishing school of German craftsmen who
closely imitated the ivories of the Italo-Byzantine school of the
sixth century, the great abbeys having many specimens of ancient ivory
carving in their treasuries. The two cherubim and Four Evangelists with
their symbolic beasts are also strongly Byzantine; above are busts of
the sun and moon and beneath the figures of Ocean and Earth. In fact,
the arrangement is borrowed wholesale from a very frequent Carlovingian
type of the crucifixion (Fig. 24), even to the little tombs which have
no connection with the subject. The workmanship is delicate, but very
conventional, and the concentric folds on this and on the second leaf,
point to the influence of the manuscripts. The second leaf represents
the Assumption of the Virgin, the attitude is stiff and the drapery is
terribly unreal, having almost the appearance of corrugated iron, but
the movements of the angels are freer, especially the forward movement
of the one on the Virgin’s right.
[Illustration: SCHOBINGER AND] [EPISCOPAL LIBRARY,
SANDHERR PHOTO. ST. GALL, SWITZERLAND
23. COVER OF A BOOK OF THE GOSPELS
Carlovingian, ninth century]
The lower scene represents St. Gall taming the bears, which bring
him bread whilst his companion sleeps. In this carving we see what
the craftsman can do when left to himself; it is not a very artistic
production, but it has a freshness entirely lacking in the other
panels. The ornamental panels are splendidly carved, and recall the
beautiful openwork panels on the book cover at Monza, which most
probably belonged to Berenger, King of Italy in 888, and Emperor 916,
and also the marble screens and balustrades which decorate so many
Byzantine buildings. There are two more plaques at Cluny[18] which
should be classed with these, and which are decorated with scroll-work
containing figures of men fighting with satyrs and lions. The figures
have a great likeness to those on the sixth century diptychs,
especially the diptych in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg; and as
that diptych formed part of the treasure of Metz Cathedral, it could
easily have served as a model to the Carlovingian ivory workers. The
rich border is of scroll-work with alternating rosettes and animals.
The second plaque is still more like the Byzantine original, and this
similarity has caused many writers to differ with Molinier and class it
among pure Byzantine work.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
24. CRUCIFIXION
Carlovingian, ninth century]
One of the most important ivories of the tenth century is the Frankfort
book cover; the second leaf is still in the Library, but the other was
in the late Spitzer Collection. It represents the large figure of _An
Archbishop chanting the Psalms_ in company with some smaller canons,
the whole group being surrounded by a battlemented wall, probably
that of the convent. The work is dry, but very exact and particularly
interesting for the study of early ecclesiastical vestments, which
are given with great detail. In the Frankfort leaf, the Archbishop
celebrates the mass, surrounded by attendant priests and acolytes.
The numerous representations of the crucifixion of the ninth and tenth
centuries can be roughly divided into two classes: those decidedly
original and others copied from Byzantine models. The Carlovingian
type is filled with symbolism, not altogether of Christian origin.
These plaques are very numerous and all vary slightly. Fig. 24 is
typical of a large number. The whole scene is emotional, all creation
is moved, the sun and moon are represented with mournful faces,
while the attendant angels weep bitterly; and below, the old pagan
personifications of Earth and Sea bow their heads in sorrow. Stephaton
with reed and sponge, and Longinus with his spear, stand on each side
of the Cross, and the Virgin and St. John are always near. The two
women carrying banners are allegorical figures of the Church and the
Synagogue[19] or the Old and New Dispensations; the banner of the
latter is sometimes reversed and broken, while the Church in some
renderings of the scene catches the blood of the Redeemer in a chalice.
These figures seem to be the successors of the little cities of
Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the Early Christian mosaics, which likewise
typified the Old and New Dispensations.
At the foot of the Cross is often rolled a serpent, emblem of Christ’s
triumph over Evil and Death; and on each side the dead are rising and
stretching out their hands towards their Redeemer.
On the Metz book cover in the Bibliothèque nationale, Adam and Eve
crouch beneath the feet of the Saviour. On the Brunswick casket, Sol
and Luna are each depicted driving in a _biga_ and bearing torches.
On this Brunswick casket, and on one in the Berlin Museum, Christ is
represented beardless, and the technique is close to the St. Gall book
cover.
In the Carlovingian period the plaques are nearly always framed by
a deeply cut acanthus border. Many of these carvings show traces of
colour and others have been studded with gold nails, and portions
incrusted with gold foil (Fig. 24). Two plaques in the Bargello have a
charming additional border of tiny dots and beads inlaid with gold.
In the ivory plaque on the cover of the gospels which were presented
by the Emperor Henry II. to the Abbey at Bamberg (now in the Munich
Library), the stronger Byzantine influence is visible, the relief,
also, is exceptionally deep, the figures of the two soldiers being
almost detached, as in the purely Byzantine ivory of _The Death of
the Virgin_ in the same library. This Byzantine influence is also to
be seen in _The Crucifixion_ in the Musée de Cluny; the arrangement
of this carving is more like a Reliquary of the True Cross, the four
compartments being crowded with figures. The figure of Christ is robed
in a flowing garment, as in many Byzantine renderings of the subject,
and there is a greater delicacy of technique, showing the more intimate
knowledge of Byzantine models.
The drapery on the Essen and Tongres plaques is particularly good, and
they probably were carved in the same atelier.
IV. GERMAN IVORY CARVING IN THE TIME OF THE OTTOS.
Otto the Great having consolidated his power in Germany, undertook, in
962, the classic expedition to Rome to be crowned Emperor of the West.
An ivory tablet, now in the Trivulzio Collection at Milan, appears to
commemorate that event. It represents Otto, his wife Adelheid, and
their little son, kneeling at the feet of Christ, while their patron
saints, Maurice and Mary, intercede for them, the name OTTO IMPERATOR
being inscribed beneath. The apparent age of the young Otto, about
seven years, would coincide with the date of the coronation, making
this carving valuable for comparison with other German ivories, many
being of far earlier date and closely connected with the Carlovingian,
from which this characteristically German art slowly developed.
The style of the Trivulzio plaque is rude, the figures heavy and
inclined to be coarse, but there is a largeness of design, the drapery
being arranged in wide planes, and the energetic heads, with the
typical long pointed beards and round cut hair, are of marked Germanic
type.
With this certain knowledge of the German style in the second half
of the tenth century, it is easier to turn back and examine the
transitional period, which is represented by a series of caskets in the
Louvre, Brunswick Museum, and the Bamberg Reliquary, half of which is
at Munich, and half in the Berlin Museum.
The Louvre casket has many Carlovingian features, the long tiled roofs
with slender columns are exactly like those in the Bible of Charles
le Chauve (ninth century). That of Brunswick shows strong Byzantine
influence, and the Bamberg casket is typical of the German imitations
of Byzantine type; the forms have a greater fulness and a certain
swing is introduced into the placid folds of the Byzantine drapery, a
swing which develops into the gusty flutterings which are a curious
characteristic of some of the German schools.[20] A gorgeous ivory
casket is still preserved in the cathedral at Quedlinburg adorned
with exquisite jewelled filigree work, and _repoussée_ plaques. The
plaques are in conventional Byzantine design, while the ivory sides
of the casket are ornamented with seated figures and scenes from the
gospels, of Byzantine inspiration it is true, but translated into the
most colloquial German. Martin Luther might have sat as a model for the
heavily built angel in the Easter Morning scene, and if this casket
really dates back to the time of Henry the Fowler, whose gift it is
said to have been, it proves that this German national art had existed
as early as the second decade of the tenth century.
A most interesting series of square plaques belong to the second half
of the century, and are much the same type as the Trivulzio tablet; the
figures are positively grotesque, with their peculiar cap-like hair,
staring eyes, heavy features, and large unmodelled forms, yet there is
such a sincere reverence and solemn earnestness about them, that the
attention is forcibly arrested.
The Darmstadt plaque represents _Christ healing the Demoniac_, who is
held, whilst the evil spirit struggles forth from his lips. The British
Museum possesses an equally well-carved plaque with the _Raising of
the Widow’s Son at Nain_, the vertical folds are finely fluted, and
the features, though peculiar, are in no way coarse. The background of
this plaque like one in the Berlin Museum, and another at Liverpool,
is covered with a diaper of cruciform perforations, like those on St.
Patrick’s Bell and other early Irish antiquities. Christ is youthful
and beardless on the Berlin plaque, which represents _Mary and Joseph
finding Him in the Temple_. The technique in this and the remaining
plaques at Liverpool is slightly coarser, but the style in all is
identical. Christ alone is nimbed, and in each the figures have heavy
masses of hair drawn back half over the ears, and strange solid robes,
with the folded edge of the transverse drapery passing just below the
knee.
Another very exceptional series, which must be the work of some Rhenish
master at the end of the century, is intensely forcible in style; but
the artist is already preoccupied with the technical effects of which
he shows himself such a master. The cover of the Echternach codex,
which is said to have belonged to the Empress Theophano, bears in the
centre an ivory plaque representing Christ on the Cross, with Longinus
and Stephaton. These bizarre figures seem to presage the whole future
of German art, the love of descriptive figures, that evil should appear
evil, and earthly things should have no heavenly aspect. Perhaps they
carried their love of naturalism to extremes, and as heavenly things
were few and far between, they also gained a strong earthly taint.
The Crucifixion on a binding in the John Rylands Library at Manchester
(Fig. 25) is evidently by the same artist. The grouping is purely
Byzantine, but the severance of feeling is as far as the East is from
the West. The gesture of the beloved disciple as he clasps his hands to
control his passionate emotion, is worth all the stereotyped poses of
Byzantine art, and one forgets the crudity of the whole thing in wonder
at the emotion pent up in those rugged forms.
The clumsy features and moustache divided into two solid pieces,
with the forceful attitudes and the peculiar drapery edged with an
embroidered hem, are found again on several other carvings,[21] notably
an aged figure of St. Paul in the Musée de Cluny. The bald head,
wrinkled forehead, and the fulness of the drooping lids, are portrayed
with wonderful realism in a wide and rough technique, the very reverse
of the caressing finish of the contemporary Byzantine artist.
This contrast of German and Byzantine art on a book belonging to the
Empress, raises the question of how much of the Byzantine influence
was attributable to Theophano, grandchild of the artistic Constantine
Porphrygenitus, and sister of the Emperors Basil and Constantine.
After long hesitation on the part of the proud Byzantine Court, the
German offer was accepted and Theophano, the delicately nurtured
Porphrygenite, was married to that little boy we see kneeling by his
mother’s side on the Trivulzio tablet, and set forth on a journey to
the savage wilds of Germany. Otto II. grew up to be an heroic dreamer,
and on his early death, during one of his campaigns in Italy, the
youthful Theophano claimed to be regent, and had a hard struggle for
the rights of her young son, Otto III.
[Illustration: [JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY, MANCHESTER
25. CRUCIFIXION
German, tenth century]
Theophano, whose grand figure stands out against a background of
incredible rudeness and turbulence, must, undoubtedly, have had
considerable influence in introducing the softer Byzantine manners.
Her husband, Otto II., is said to have adopted much of the Byzantine
court ceremonial, and the wedding presents she brought with her, on her
arrival in 972, must have formed a fund of novel design for the German
craftsmen. Yet it is very easy to exaggerate her personal influence.
Byzantium had always been a remarkable civilizing agent, and in the
tenth to eleventh centuries was exercising the strongest influence
on the West. Relations with Germany had been established long before
the time of Theophano, and were continued long after. In reality Otto
III. was the more special admirer and imitator of Byzantine arts and
customs, this influence coming, no doubt, indirectly from his mother’s
care in choosing for his masters, men of high culture. One of these
men, the most trusted councillor of Theophano, was the refined and
learned Greek, John of Calabria; and the other, the German, Bernward,
was a most enthusiastic amateur of the arts, and on his appointment to
the See of Hildesheim, helped to create the new German school which
flourished all through the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In every museum there are examples of the Byzantino-German school, one
branch of which was situated in the Rhine Provinces. The relief of the
Rhenish carvings is usually bold, and the figures large and long, but
they often lack both the spontaneity of the Germans and the elegance of
the Byzantines. A charming representation of the _Nativity_ encircled
by an embattled wall, and another plaque with the _Visitation of the
Magi_, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, show these features, the
figures having almost the appearance of children’s toys set out at
random without the slightest relation to the background. A peculiar
feature in some of these carvings, is the row of dots drilled down
the centre of each fold. There was also a school of direct copiers of
Byzantine carvings, which varies from the most miserable caricatures to
such splendidly finished work, that critics experience great difficulty
in deciding for or against the Byzantine origin. A case in point is
the magnificent book cover in the Vatican, which came from the Abbey
of Lorsch in Germany, and the similar panel in the Victoria and Albert
Museum.
The central figure of Christ on the Vatican panel has a wide smooth
face (without a beard), as in the sixth century sculptures. The
Virgin’s face is much narrower and more of the Byzantine type, and
the robes are treated with a wonderful complexity of folds. Both
these panels are divided like the five-piece diptych (Fig. 10, with a
single figure on each side), and have a similar pair of flying angels
above, and long narrow scene beneath. Westwood has attributed them to
Italy in the sixth to eighth centuries, but that is impossible, as
the actual technique is far more delicate than anything that could
have been accomplished even in the sixth century. Molinier thinks
it probable that the Vatican panel is an original from the finest
period of Byzantine Art, and the English panel is an imitation by an
almost contemporary German craftsman. The extraordinary similarity of
technique, even down to such small details as the folds of drapery on
the thighs of the standing figures, seems to point that the two panels
came from the same atelier, even if they were not made for the same
book cover, the latter seeming to be disproved owing to the slight
variation in size and shape of some of the panels. The book cover in
the Bodleian Library at Oxford is a variant of the panel in the Vatican.
[Illustration: [BRITISH MUSEUM
26. CEREMONIAL COMB
English, eleventh century]
Most of the small objects connected with ecclesiastical ceremonial are
of this period, for instance the liturgic combs used by the bishop
or officiating priest before celebrating high mass; the comb was a
special feature in Anglo-Saxon ritual, and several have been found in
Great Britain. The strange large comb in the British Museum is said to
have been found in Wales, and is probably about the eleventh century
(Fig. 26). It shows the later forms of the Anglo-Saxon scroll-work
and has much in connection with Romanesque decoration. The comb of
St. Gauzelin, Bishop of Toul is still preserved in the cathedral at
Nancy, and the comb of St. Loup in the cathedral at Sens; both betray
strong Byzantine and oriental influence, and both date from the tenth
century. These combs all have the more general arrangement of a double
row of teeth, in two sizes; but that attributed to St. Heribert (in
Cologne Museum), has only one row, and is probably more ancient, as the
grouping of the Crucifixion is like that on the Carlovingian plaques
of the ninth century (Fig. 24). The _urcei_, or holy water stoups are
usually of German origin. A magnificent example in Milan Cathedral
bears the inscription of Gotfredus, Archbishop of Milan, 973-978. It
is very handsome in design, being surrounded by an arcade, above which
rise the towers of the new Jerusalem. Underneath are seated the Virgin
and Child and the Four Evangelists, modelled in the rather heavy German
style of the tenth century.
Another _urceus_ in the Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg is of the
same bucket shape, but ornamented with two tiers of arcades containing
complicated scenes from the Passion. The Cathedral Treasury at
Aix-la-Chapelle contains two of these _urcei_ one of an octagon shape,
each panel having two figures. The style of carving is like that of
the school of ivory carvers founded by Bernward at Hildesheim in the
eleventh century.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] _L’Archittetura in Italia, VI.-XI. cent._ Venice, 1890.
[17] See Marcel Reymond, _La Sculpture Toscane_. Florence, 1897.
[18] Nos. 1041-2, Cat. 1881.
[19] Dr. Paul Weber, _Geistliche Schauspiel und Kirchliche Kunst_.
[20] See a plaque in the British Museum with the Nativity, and notably
the Salutation.
[21] See article by Dr. W. Vöge in the _Jahrbuch der kgl. preuss.
Kunst-samml._, 1899.
CHAPTER IV
ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC IVORIES
Romanesque Art grew up north of the Alps in the valley of the Lower
Rhone and South France, and is especially the work of the French
people. The Italians led the way in the first centuries A.D., and were
followed by the Greeks of Byzantium, and then by the Carlovingian
Germanic peoples in the great art development of Europe; but from the
eleventh century France entirely fills the stage, and this pre-eminence
was kept up till the early Renaissance, when Italy again takes a
leading part.
The Romanesque style was transitional, and turned for re-inspiration to
the Gallo-Roman monuments, but it is deeply influenced by that northern
spirit which later on triumphed in the full perfection of the Gothic
Art.
There was a great revival of monumental sculpture with the growth of
the Romanesque spirit, and sculptured figures, from being introduced
tentatively in the capitals and other parts connected with the
structure, later, entirely filled the great _tympana_ or arches
surmounting the doors of the churches, and from thence spread to every
nook and cranny till in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they
were numbered by thousands.
Carved ivories are not so numerous in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries as in the years before, and when they became popular again,
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the division between the
sculptors in stone and the ivory workers had taken place, beautiful and
clever imitations of the sculptures were turned out by the dozen, but
it is exceedingly rare to find the work of a real artist.
The sculptures of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries have many
details in common with the book cover at St. Gall (Fig. 23); but
gradually the folds of the drapery grew vertical and the figures more
drawn out, and with a peculiar tendency to arrange the hair in set
curled locks. One of the most important transitional ivories is the
diptych of St. Nicasius, Bishop of Rheims, which is preserved in the
Cathedral of Tournai, and is still strongly Carlovingian, as will be
seen in the typical representation of the Crucifixion. Each leaf has
a central medallion, that on the first leaf containing the _Agnus
Dei_ supported by angels, whose movements can be closely paralleled
in the St. Gall plaque. Above, Christ is throned in a mandorla and
accompanied by the symbols of the four evangelists. On the second leaf,
in addition to the medallion containing the figure of St. Nicasius are
some pierced vine scrolls rather like those on Fig. 23, and by far the
best part of a very poor work. The drapery is, perhaps, better designed
than in the Carlovingian sculptures, but the folds are only engraved,
and though there is a certain change in the type of the faces, in
the matter of beauty it is entirely for the worse. A plaque in the
British Museum seems also to belong to this period, it is bordered
by a flowered scroll and has representations of _The Nativity_, _The
Announcement to the Shepherds_ and _The Baptism_, the latter being very
strange; the figure of Christ being immersed to the waist in a large
vase.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
27. CROZIER
French, fourteenth century]
The Romanesque age was, above all, the age of symbolism; the sculptures
on the pastoral staves are full of hidden meaning. The _tau_, or crutch
shape, is the earliest form and belonged, more especially, to the
insignia of the abbots, though in later days they also had croziers.
The most ancient _tau_[22] belonged to Morard, Abbot of St. Germain de
Près (990-1014) and is ornamented with a network pattern. Another fine
_tau_, with the ends curling upwards and finished with lions’ heads,
belonged to Gérard, Bishop of Limoges.
The earlier croziers had a simple volute usually ending in a dragon’s
or serpent’s head, with snapping jaws, which symbolizes the struggle
between the serpent and the cross,[23] the latter being borne by the
symbolic ram, a development of the _Agnus Dei_. This ram is the symbol
of Christ; as St. Ambrose says, because he washes his fleece, guides
the flock, clothes the shepherd, conquers the wolves by his strength
and was the victim which replaced Isaac at the sacrifice, and again,
because the ram is silent before the shearers, as Christ was before his
judges, and finally the crozier curls like the horn of a ram, a symbol
of force.
The famous crozier (so-called of “St. Gregory”) in the Monastery of
St. Gregory on the Cœlian Hill at Rome, shows the dragon’s head, the
ram bearing the cross and a strange little lion cub, which is a direct
reference to the death and resurrection of Christ. In the natural
history of the Middle Ages, which drew more on fancy than on fact, it
was narrated how the lion cub died at birth and could only be recalled
to life by the breath of its father.
The Romanesque Church plunged even deeper into this symbolic thought,
and the Pascal Taper, which signifies the life of Christ on earth was
placed in a candelabrum supported by lions.
The strange pagan form, half human and half serpent, with a cock’s
head, is none other than the mystic Abraxas, whose name in Greek
numerals represented in the elaborate Gnostic calculations the whole
hierarchy of heaven and the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.
This symbol was supposed to have great talismanic powers to ward
off evil, and though it was contrary to canonical rules, Gnostic
gems engraved with the Abraxas deity were often set in the episcopal
croziers, or even the crook was decorated with this mysterious symbol,
as on the ivory crozier in the British Museum.
These croziers became more and more complicated in design, whole groups
of figures were introduced and foliage of a freer pattern, as in the
Staff of St. Ives, Bishop of Chartres, which is now in the Bargello at
Florence. The Gothic artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
filled the volutes with figures and exquisite foliage, the groups
of the Crucifixion and the Virgin in glory fitting back to back so
accurately, that each side appeared perfect, and the join of the ivory
volute on to the wooden staff was often hidden by a row of saints
under delicate Gothic canopies.
The book cover of the Princess Melisanda, daughter of Baldwin II.,
King of Jerusalem (✝1160), is preserved in the MS. Department of
the British Museum; it is especially interesting as it shows the
curious mixture of Byzantine, Arabian, and Western art which had been
adopted by the Frankish rulers of the East, and which must have had
considerable influence on French art. The upper panel is ornamented
with representations of the six good actions, the principal actor
being richly apparelled as a Byzantine _basileus_. These medallions
are surrounded by a cord-like scroll, and the spaces are filled with
struggling oriental animals, which symbolize the combat of the Virtues
and Vices. On the lower leaf the medallions contain scenes from the
life of King David and both panels are surrounded by a border of
thoroughly oriental design.
Before entering on the subject of Gothic carvings, one class of bone
caskets should be mentioned which are roughly carved in imitation of
the Romanesque monumental style, with rows of tall figures under round
arcades. Molinier thinks they are rather archaistic than archaic, being
made in Constantinople as late as the thirteenth century, from old
models, and sold to contain the relics brought back from the East by
the Crusaders.
There are examples in the Berlin Museum, the Louvre, and the Musée
Cluny; the latter contained the relics of St. Barnaby, and was the gift
of Hugh, Abbot d’Estival and Bishop of Ptolemaïs in the thirteenth
century.
The stages of development from the Romanesque to Gothic are almost
imperceptible, and it is hard to say when the lingering classical
traditions received their final transformation. The same breath which
awakened the life in architecture freed the sculptor from the chains
of custom, and we may consider the statues on the porch at Chartres
as the commencement of modern sculpture. Like the Greeks, the Gothic
artists formed a type by the process of selection from individuals. The
new art was at first absolutely religious and simple, but the research
for grace and the ever growing naturalism, mitigated, it is true, by
extreme elegance and delicacy, gradually engrossed the entire mind of
the artist and ended in the exclusion of all spirituality.
The ivory carvers long continued repeating the old formulæ, and it
was only by the end of the thirteenth century that they commenced to
copy the exquisite statues which decorated the new cathedrals in such
numbers.
There are several examples of thirteenth century work still extremely
old-fashioned in style, as the three little pierced plaques in
the Louvre, representing the twelve apostles, accompanied by the
favourite French saints, Denis, Rusticus and Eleutherius. The style
is still transitional, but the forms of the foliage are freer, and
a considerable modification of type is visible. The Virgin in the
Collection Fillon is seated full face with the Child sitting equally on
both knees, the stiffness of the pose being only relieved by a little
freedom in the turn of the Child’s head.
The marvellous impulse of religious enthusiasm, which, arising in the
thirteenth century, became evident by the passionate fervour of the
worship of the Virgin, and the multiplication of her images for public
and private devotion. One of the most ideally noble representations
is that in the group of _The Coronation of the Virgin_ in the Louvre,
(Fig. 28); it closely resembles the best sculpture in its severe
lines, and was probably made about 1280. A hundred years later there
is an entry in the Inventory of Charles V. which most probably refers
to this group; it reads most quaintly in the old French. “_Item, ung
courronnement de Nostre Seigneur à Nostre-Dame, d’yvire et trois
angellotz de mesmes._”
The earlier ivories were always painted, and much of the original
colouring is preserved. The Virgin is dressed in rich robes, _semées de
France_ (as much in honour of the Royal House as of her attribute the
“lily”), but she is utterly unconscious of self as she humbly bows her
head to receive the crown. The two little ecstatic angels form a part
of every group of the Glorification of the Virgin, either bearing tall
candles, or with their hands raised in adoration.
[Illustration: A. GIRAUDON PHOTO.] [LOUVRE, PARIS
28. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN
End of thirteenth century]
There is hardly fifty years between this purely idealistic conception
and the beautiful, but completely mundane _Vierge de la Sainte
Chapelle_ in the same collection. This magnificent figure is carved
from one huge piece of ivory, and was probably the gift of St. Louis
to his new chapel, about 1320. The masterly arrangement of the drapery
and the exquisite finish make it one of the most celebrated ivories of
the fourteenth century, but the old simplicity is quite gone, and the
studied ease of the Virgin’s pose is chosen to give value to every line
of drapery and figure. There is a feeling of movement in all her being,
which, with the beautiful broken folds of the drapery has within it the
germ of that restlessness which, rapidly increasing, became a painful
fault in later Gothic sculpture. The colouring is very delicate, the
pupils of the eyes are dark; the lips, which are just parting in a
rather affected smile, are lightly touched with carmine, and a faint
gilded border relieves the edges of the garments. The little seated
figure of the Virgin in the Bargello (Fig. 29), is more direct and
simple in design, and is probably of the last years of the thirteenth
century.
The curve in many of these figures has been put down to the shape of
the tusk; this is no doubt the case in many examples, but the peculiar
twist is first found in some of the stone figures of the Sainte
Chapelle, where it seems to have been introduced as a contrast to the
perpendicular shafts of the architecture, and the constant employment
of this peculiar twist in the tiny figures of the ivory reliefs and in
stone carving, proves it to be more a question of taste than necessity.
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE
29. THE MADONNA AND CHILD
Thirteenth century]
In the Paris Exposition of 1900 two lovely ivory figures were
placed together and formed a group of the Annunciation. They belong
to different private collections,[24] and have been beautifully
illustrated in the splendid series of photogravures of the treasures
in the _Exposition retrospective de l’Art français_. Whether they are
by the hand of the same craftsman seems a matter of doubt, as the
technique of the drapery varies somewhat; but nothing can equal the
exquisite softness of the Virgin’s robes and the dignified pose, worthy
of the best work of the thirteenth century.
The ideal and pathetic group of _The Descent from the Cross_ now in the
Louvre (Fig. 30). It is strangely reminiscent in design, recalling the
Byzantine rendering of the same subject in an eleventh century ivory,
late in the Bonaffé Collection, in which the Virgin raises the hand of
Christ to her lips with the same noble and restrained gesture, while
His lifeless body slips helplessly down over the shoulder of Joseph of
Arimathea. A similar group is sculptured in the Church of Le Bourget
in Savoy, which is also useful in giving a clue to the fourth figure,
which is evidently missing from the Louvre group.
Maskell, in the introductions to his _Catalogue of Ivories in the
Victoria and Albert Museum_, refers to a small carving from the centre
of a crozier which represents the Dead Christ on the knees of the
Virgin, which is treated with strong but reserved feeling.
[Illustration: A. GIRAUDON PHOTO.] [LOUVRE, PARIS
30. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS
End of thirteenth century]
The series of religious _tableaux cloans_ are very numerous, especially
in the fourteenth century; they consist of two, three or more pieces
and were intended for private devotions or as portable decorations for
the various altars of a church, being taken with the cross and candles
by the acolyte and placed on the altar for mass. The ornamentation
was usually in tiers of little scenes, or with one large central
figure (Fig. 31). The subjects have little variety and are taken
from the Passion or the popular _Légende dorée_. The scenes usually
follow in chronological order from the bottom of the left leaf to
the corresponding corner on the right. The composition is often very
confused, owing to the tendency to portray different stages of the same
action in different compartments, to avoid placing figures on a second
plane, and often the complicated architectural setting compelled the
figures to be placed in contorted attitudes; in many representations of
the Crucifixion the figure of Christ is strangely twisted to bring the
head on a level with the other figures beneath the arcade.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
31. POLYPTYCH. VIRGIN AND CHILD—SCENES FROM THE NATIVITY
French, fourteenth century]
A fine triptych of the thirteenth century, in the Collection Martin
le Roy at Paris, is especially interesting, as it is an early example
of the composition of the scenes of _The Death of the Virgin_, as
described by Jaques Voragine in the _Légende dorée_, and it shows
how the types hardly altered all through the succeeding century. The
angel coming to the Virgin to announce her death brings her a palm
from Paradise as a sign; the group of men in uneasy attitudes are the
apostles newly dropped from the clouds, having been collected from all
parts to be present. The lowest scene of the central part is the most
important; in it the Virgin is lying dead, surrounded by the apostles,
whilst the little naked soul is on the arm of Christ, Who raises His
hand to bless the dead body. The whole imagery is the same as on the
Byzantine ivory in the Library at Munich. In another part the body is
borne away for burial. On the second register the Virgin rises in glory
carrying a palm and book and accompanied by the most charming group
of music-making angels; above, she sits enthroned beside Christ and
attended by the two candle-bearing angels.
The only known signed mediæval ivory is a box in the British Museum
which bears the name of _Jehan Nicolle_. In the Inventory of Charles V.
the name of one ivory carver has survived, but he was also goldsmith to
the king. “_Item, deux grans beaulx tableaux d’yvire des troys Maries
que fist Jehan le Braellier, en ung estuy de cuir._” These _estuys de
cuir_ were made of very beautiful tooled leather, two fine examples are
in the Salting Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Reference
is made to as many as three degrees of ivory carvers in the list of
_mestiers and marchandise_ of the town of Paris in 1258.
[Illustration: [MAYER COLLECTION, LIVERPOOL MUSEUM
32. FIRST LEAF OF A DIPTYCH
French, fourteenth century]
As the country grew more settled, riches and comfort increased, and
once more the ivory carvers turned their attention to ornamenting the
little objects of civil life, and we find exquisitely carved writing
tablets, caskets and articles for the toilet, as combs, long hair
wavers, and above all, the covers for the little metal mirrors that
were worn hanging from the girdle. No self-respecting woman could
dispense with these little luxuries, and in the lengthy _Miroir de
Mariage_ of Eustache Deschamps, one verse deals with the requirements
of a wife:
_Pigne, tressoir, semblablement
Et miroir, pour moy ordonner
D’yvoire me devez donner,
Et l’estuy qui soit noble et gent
Pendre a cheannes d’argent._
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE
33. PLAQUE FROM A CASKET
French, fourteenth century]
Quite a new range of subjects were introduced at the end of the
thirteenth century, and in civil as in religious subjects the
compositions were fixed and varied but little afterwards; though we
know that about 1340 there was a complete change in dress, and the
old-fashioned long loose robes, which fell in such soft folds were
discarded for tighter and rather shorter garments; these are sometimes
seen in social groups, as the games of _la mourre_ and _la main chaude_
(a sort of forfeits), which are carved on a pair of writing tablets
in the Louvre. The subjects are nearly all from literary sources,
the miniatures of the MSS. having once more furnished models for the
ivory carver. There is a beautiful little casket in the British Museum
with scenes from the romance of _La Chastelaine de Vergi_, and the
delightful dancing group in the Bargello (Fig. 33) formed part of a
similar casket. The rhythmic flow of the soft rich drapery as the
dancers move to the sound of music is exceedingly beautiful and the
treatment broad, considering that the whole scene is contained in
little more than six square inches. The figures are well proportioned,
but with hardly any muscular development, and there is an entire absence
of manliness in the male figures, who can only be recognized by the
arrangement of the hair, the centre lock being cut across the forehead,
and by the slightly shorter robes.
Scenes are taken from the _Lai d’Aristote_ and the other so-called
classical romances of _Jason_, _Alexander_ and _Virgil_, the latter
being described as a mediæval enchanter. Both he and poor Aristotle
were most cruelly treated by their mistresses, the dignified Virgil
being compelled to crawl on all fours while the lady rides on his back,
and Aristotle fared even worse, being suspended in mid-air in a basket.
The cycle of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are ever
popular themes, especially the scene of _Tristan and Iseult_ surprised
by the reflection of King Mark in the fountain. _The Assault of the
Castle of Love_ was taken from an allegory in the _Romaunt de la Rose_.
The knights ride up to force the gate or scale the battlements and are
met with a shower of posies, but the fair garrison makes but a faint
show of resistance, and the enemy is soon within.
Four lions or basilisks crawl along the outer edge of these mirrors
for convenience in opening the circular cover. There are examples in
all collections of these civil ivories, some of a perfectly marvellous
delicacy and minuteness, and it is unnecessary to name any special
examples, except, perhaps, a fine but broken mirror cover in the Musée
de Cluny which is splendidly carved with the figures of a king and
queen.
[Illustration: [MAYER COLLECTION, LIVERPOOL MUSEUM
34. THE ELOPEMENT OF GUINIVERE
French, fourteenth century]
The art of Southern France had a peculiar local style, the figures
being heavier and flabbier with little thought of the modelling of
forms, which were thickly covered with brilliant paint; there is
perhaps a greater freedom in the grouping of the figures.
By the end of the fourteenth century the Franco-Flemish influence
appears, and art rapidly lost its delicacy in the attempts at realism.
A magnificent chess-board in the Bargello of the closely allied
Burgundian school, is carved with a tourney and other festivities, and
gives a good picture of the costumes of the fifteenth century. The
beautiful ivory harp in the Louvre, and the prettily carved wand of the
Lord High Falconer of England in the Liverpool Museum are some of the
latest Gothic efforts before the advent of the Renaissance.
There is little to distinguish German ivories in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries from the French; perhaps there is a tendency to
greater elaboration in the architecture, and on rare occasions the
figures betray the German type; but in the fifteenth century the love
of realism gained ground, and the ivory carvers more closely imitated
the painters and the rapidly increasing school of wood carving.
[Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE
35. PANEL FROM A CASKET
French, fourteenth century]
The English were also profoundly influenced by the French Gothic art,
but gradually worked out a style of their own. There was less monotony
of design and a considerable modification of types, the figures
becoming thinner and the faces graver, more earnest and sweeter in
expression, though, at the same time, more realistic; also there is
a variation in certain details of the costumes. Two pierced plaques
with scenes from _The Life of St. Agnes_ which were in the Meyrick
and Spitzer Collections, and a plaque representing Christ with the
apostles, the group being surrounded by rich architecture, and two
other pierced plaques with scenes of the Passion, in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, seem to be English work. In the Salting Collection,
now in the same museum, is a deeply cut diptych of a strongly
characteristic type representing the _Virgin and Child_, and _Christ
teaching_; the figures are framed in architecture of an English type
decorated with small heraldic roses. This diptych formed part of both
the Soltykoff and Spitzer Collections.
The triptych in the British Museum (Fig. 36) is closely connected with
it, and is said to have been carved for Bishop Grandison of Exeter
(1327-1369), but Molinier thinks that the style is far nearer that
of the early fifteenth century. In the British Museum there is also
the wing of a diptych, in two divisions, with _The Annunciation_, and
below, _John Baptist_; the other wing is in the Louvre and represents
the _Coronation_, with _John the Evangelist_ in the lower compartment.
Before closing this short survey, one small statuette in the Victoria
and Albert Museum should be mentioned, as the sweet and affectionate
earnestness of the Virgin’s face is typical of the English ivories, for
if far inferior to the French in actual technique, they have a depth of
reverent feeling which is too often entirely wanting in the latter.
The Italian ivory workers continued long under the spell of the
Byzantines, and when aroused to the fresh ideas of Gothic art, their
work at first showed few features that could distinguish it from the
French models. Gradually the designs became less concentrated and many
differences crept in, especially in the treatment of the conventional
foliage. The gorgeously coloured crozier in the Salting Collection is
an example of this period; it belonged to Benci Aldobrandini, Bishop of
Volterra in 1331. On the top is a half-length figure of Christ between
two men; _The Adoration of the Magi_ is figured within the crook,
which emerges from the throat of a dragon, and just below, in four
highly-painted shrines, sit the Evangelists.
[Illustration: MANSELL PHOTO.] [BRITISH MUSEUM
36. TRIPTYCH OF BISHOP GRANDISON OF EXETER
English, fourteenth century]
In the late fourteenth century the Italians commenced an entirely
original style of carving on narrow strips of bone. The figures with
the scenic accessories are closely related to the early schools of
painting. These sculptures, unlike the unmixed ivory of the French
carvings, were always framed in narrow intarsia borders. Small
triptychs (Fig. 37) developed into enormous size, as the great
altar-piece in the old Sacristy at the Certosa at Pavia and the famous
_retable_ in the Louvre, which comes from the abbey of Poissy, and was
the gift of the Due de Berri, brother of Charles V., and one of the
regents for the young Charles VI. in 1380. It contains his portrait and
that of his wife, Jehanne de Bourgogne. The fragments of a third large
_retable_ still exist, divided between the John Rylands Library at
Manchester and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
These _retables_ are large in size, but not great in design, and though
the groups of figures are lovely in detail, they are not impressive as
a whole, the low relief giving little scope for the play of light and
shade.
There are many beautiful polygonal caskets with domed covers, also
combs and other small articles, and a very excellent account of the
whole series has been given by Julius v. Schlosser in the _Wiener
Jahrbuch_ for 1900.
[Illustration: [VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
LOAN COLLECTION HON. A. BERESFORD-HOPE, M.P.
37. TRIPTYCH IN CARVED BONE
Italian, early fifteenth century]
This short account of the Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages commenced
with Italy in the last years of the fourth century, and, having made
the round of Europe, returns to her after a thousand years, at the end
of the fourteenth century, and must close, just at the outgoing of the
mediæval era, with this magnificent group of carvings, which lies half
across the border line of the early and true Renascimento.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] See an article on Croziers by Cahier and Martin, _Mélanges
d’Archéologie_, t. iv.
[23] See an article by Barbier de Montault, _Revue de l’Art Chrétien_,
1883, p. 157.
[24] The Angel belongs to M. G. Chalandon and the Virgin to M. P.
Garnier.
LIST OF DIPTYCHS
FROM MOLINIER
CONSULAR
1. About 400. [Probably] STILICHO.
_a._ Stilicho, standing, armed, bearded.
_b._ Serena and little Eucherius, standing.
_Tesorio della Basilica, Monza._
2. 406. PROBUS. Rome.
_a._ Emperor Honorius, standing, armed, with standard and orb.
_b._ Emperor Honorius, standing, armed, with shield and spear.
_Cathedral Treasury, Aosta._
3. 428. FELIX. Rome.
_a._ Standing in trabea, bearded.
_b._ Standing in chlamys.
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
4. 449. ASTURIAS. Rome.
_a._ Sitting on curule chair, two attendants (lost).
_b._ Same type (formerly at Liège).
_Darmstadt Museum._
5. 487. BOETHIUS. Rome.
_a._ Sitting, holding _mappa_.
_b._ Standing.
_Museo Civico, Brescia._
6. 488. SIVIDIUS. Rome.
_a._ Inscribed medallion and scrolls.
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
_b._ Inscribed medallion and scrolls (lost).
7. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Consular type. Lions.
_b._ Cons. type. Bears.
_National Museum, Zurich._
8. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Cons. type. Bears (Basilewsky Coll.).
_Museum of the Hermitage, St. Petersburg._
_b._ (Lost.)
9. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Cons. type. Gladiators.
_b._ (Lost, or possibly pair to No. 10.)
_Besançon Museum._
10. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ (Lost or possibly pair to No. 9.)
_b._ Cons. type. Bull-fight (late Baudot Coll.).
_Musée de Cluny, Paris._
11. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Crossed cornucopias.
_Biblioteca, Lucca._
12. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Bust and scroll. Monogram.
_Trivulzio Collection, Milan._
13. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Same as No. 12. (Renaissance carving on back.)
_Louvre, Paris._
14. 506. AREOBINDUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Type of No. 12, without monogram
(formerly in Treasury of St. Gaudenzio, Novara).
_Museo Civico, Bologna._
15. 513. CLEMENTINUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Cons. type. Monogram.
_Mayer Collection, Liverpool Museum._
16. 515. ANTHEMIUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Cons. type (lost).
(_Formerly at Limoges._)
17. 517. ANASTASIUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Cons. type. Bears.
_b._ Cons. type. Manumission of slaves, etc.
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
18. 517. ANASTASIUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Cons. type (formerly at Liège).
_Berlin Museum._
_b._ Cons. type (broken), (formerly at Liège).
_Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London._
19. 517. ANASTASIUS. Constantinople.
_b._ Type of No. 18. Two Amazons and jugglers.
_Chapter Library, Verona._
20. 517. ANASTASIUS. Constantinople.
_b._ Lower fragment, two Amazons and tumblers.
(_Formerly Coll. Jauzé, lost._)
21. 518. MAGNUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Cons. type (formerly at Leyden).
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
22. 518. MAGNUS. Constantinople (attributed to).
_a._ Type of No. 21 (camel bone).
Re-inscribed PIO PRAESULE BALDRICO IUBENTE.
_Mayer Collection, Liverpool Museum._
23. 518. MAGNUS. Constantinople (attributed to).
_a._ Type of No. 21.
Re-inscribed ARABONTI DEO VOTA
(formerly Basilewsky Coll.).
_Hermitage, St. Petersburg._
24. 518. MAGNUS. Constantinople (attributed to).
_a._ Type of No. 21. Changed to wrinkled old man.
_Museo di Castello, Milan._
26. 521. JUSTINIANUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Inscribed medallion, four rosettes.
_Trivulzio Collection, Milan._
27. 521. JUSTINIANUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Type of No. 26.
_Collection Sigismond Bordac._
28. 521. JUSTINIANUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Type of No. 26 (formerly at Autun).
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
29. 525. PHILOXENUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Three linked medallions
(formerly in St. Corneille, Compiègne).
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
30. 525. PHILOXENUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Inscribed octagon with scrolls.
_Trivulzio Collection, Milan._
31. 525. PHILOXENUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Type of No. 30.
_Mayer Collection, Liverpool Museum._
32. 525. PHILOXENUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Type of No. 30 (worn).
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
33. [530?] LAMPADIUS. Constantinople.
Consul behind _cancelli_. Chariot Race.
_Museo Civico, Brescia._
34. 530. ORESTES. Rome.
_a._ and _b._ Cons. type. Two Servants.
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London._
35. 539. ARION. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Bust and scrolls.
_Chapter House of Orviedo Cathedral, Spain._
36. 540. JUSTINUS. Constantinople.
_a._ and _b._ Bust and scrolls. Three medallions.
Two servants.
_Berlin Museum._
37. 541. BASILIUS. Constantinople.
_a._ Consul and Constantinople.
_Castello, Milan._
_b._ Victory.
_Uffizi, Florence._
ANONYMOUS CONSULAR DIPTYCHS
38. V. cent.
_a._ Consul and friends; above, imperial figures enthroned;
below, barbarians.
_b._ Repeated with variations.
_Cathedral Treasury, Halberstadt._
39. V.-VI. cent.
_a._ Consul and two attendants. Below, large scene,
leopard fight.
_b._ Consul and two attendants. Below, large scene,
lions (formerly in Cathedral Treasury).
_Bourges Museum._
40. V.-VI. cent. So-called Apotheosis of Romulus.
Consul borne to Heaven in chariot.
_British Museum._
41. VI. cent.
_b._ Bust in garland, four rosettes.
_Biblioteca Barbarini, Rome._
42. VI. cent. Two worn fragments of a diptych.
Cons. type. (Later carving on back.)
_Victoria and Albert Museum._
_British Museum._
43. VI. cent. Bust and scrolls.
Type of No. 12. Camel bone.
_Mayer Collection, Liverpool Museum._
44. VI. cent.
_a._ Cons. type, sitting.
_b._ Cons. type, standing.
Changed to St. Gregory and King David.
_Tesorio della Basilica, Monza._
45. VI. cent. Cons. type, changed to St. Peter.
_Library of the Metropolitan Chapter House, Prague._
46, 47, 48, 49. VI. cent. Five-piece diptych.
(46) Top. Flying figures.
(47) Bottom. Barbarians.
_Trivulzio Collection, Milan._
(48) Top. Flying figures.
_Basle Museum._
(49) Right side. Consul and Victory.
_Munich Library._
OFFICIAL DIPTYCHS
50. End of IV. or commencement of V. cent.
_Probianus._ Vice-prefect of Rome.
_a._ Sitting, delivering justice. Below, two litigants.
_b._ Sitting with scroll. Below, two litigants.
_Berlin Library._
51. V.-VI. cent.
Above, type of No. 33. Below, fight with elans.
_Mayer Collection, Liverpool Museum._
52. V.-VI. cent.
_a._ and _b._ Games in Circus (varied),
(formerly in Basilewsky Coll.).
_Hermitage, St. Petersburg._
53. VI. cent.
_a._ Rome carrying orb and spear.
_b._ Constantinople carrying cornucopia and palm.
Later inscription _Temperancia_ and _Castitas_.
_Cabinet of Antiquities, Vienna Museum._
54. VI. cent.
_a._ A bald man standing half under a porch.
_b._ Slightly varied pose.
_Cathedral Treasury, Novara._
55. VI. cent. Standing figure.
_Museo Civico, Bologna._
56. VI. cent. Muse, standing (broken, found at Trèves).
_Berlin Museum._
57. VI. cent. (?)
_a._ Figure, sitting.
_Cabinet of Antiquities, Vienna._
_b._ Figure, standing.
_Bargello, Florence._
PRIVATE DIPTYCHS
58. End of IV. or commencement of V. cent.
_a._ Nicomachorum. Draped figure and torch.
_Musée de Cluny, Paris._
_b._ Symmachorum. Draped figure and altar.
_Victoria and Albert Museum, London._
59. V.-VI. cent.
_a._ Hippolytus and Phædra.
_b._ Diana and Endymion.
_Museo Civico, Brescia._
60. VI. cent. Two registers. Dioscuri. Europa and the Bull.
_Trieste Museum._
61. VI. cent.
_a._ Æsculapius.
_b._ Hygeia.
_Mayer Collection, Liverpool._
62. VI. cent.
_a._ Muse with lyre.
_b._ Poet.
_Tesorio della Basilica, Monza._
63. VI. cent.
_a._ and _b._ Authors and Muses, varied poses.
64. VI. cent.
_a._ Bacchus Helios.
_b._ Diana Lucifera (formerly in the Cathedral Treasury).
_Sens Museum._
65. VI. cent. Three registers. Apollo and the Muses (broken).
_Bibliothèque nationale, Paris._
LIST OF MUSEUMS
The following Museums are richest in Mediæval Ivory Carving.
_Austria._
VIENNA. (Cabinet des Antiques),
K. K. Oesterreichisches Museum.
_England._
LONDON. British Museum.
Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.
(This museum has a large collection of Fictile Ivories.)
Salting Loan Collection.
LIVERPOOL. Mayer Collection. Free Public Museum.
MANCHESTER. John Rylands Library. (Late Crawford Collection.)
OXFORD. Bodleian Library.
_France._
PARIS. Bibliothèque nationale
Cabinet des Médailles. Département des MSS.
Musée de Cluny.
Musée du Louvre.
_German Empire._
BERLIN. Kunstkammer. K. Museum. K. Bibliothek.
MUNICH. K. Staats-Bibliothek. National Bavarian Museum.
_Italy._
BOLOGNA. Museo Civico.
BRESCIA. Museo Civico.
FLORENCE. Museo nazionale. Bargello.
MILAN. Museo archeologico. Castello.
Tesorio del Duomo.
MONZA. Tesorio della Basilica.
RAVENNA. Museo Civico. Duomo.
ROME. Biblioteca Barbarini.
Museo Kircheriano (Collegio Romano).
Vatican. Museo cristiano. Biblioteca.
For the study of Ivory Carvings M. Molinier gives a full bibliography
in his work on _Ivoires_.
For illustrations. Garucci, vol. vi. and the Collections of Photographs
published by Dr. Graeven.
Fictile Ivories for sale, see Oldfield’s Catalogue.
INDEX
Abraxas, 133.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Cathedral, 128.
Aldobrandini, Benci, Bishop of Volterra, crozier of, 152.
Amalasuntha, 7, 30, 31.
Anagni, silver casket at, 80.
Anastasius, diptych of, 24.
Areobindus, diptychs of, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 40.
Asturias, diptych of, 13.
Bamberg Missal, 88; reliquary, 118, 119.
Basil II., the Emperor, 95.
Basilewsky tablet, 18.
Basilius, diptych of, 18, 19, 20.
Bateman diptych, 67.
Berlin, Museum, 49, 66, 75, 117, 119, 121, 134.
Bernward, Bishop of Hildesheim, 124, 125, 128.
Besançon, 18.
Boethius, diptych of, 13.
Bologna, Museo Civico, 37, 78, 97.
Bonaffé Collection, 140.
Book covers, 10, 25, 26, 52-57, 110, 112, 113, 116, 117, 118,
121, 123, 125, 134.
Bourges, 22, 29, 40.
Brescia, 21, 32, 34, 39, 42, 43, 48, 78.
Brunswick, 117, 119.
Brussels, Royal Art Museum, 38 _n._
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 44.
Carrand diptych, 39-42.
Caskets, Byzantine, 75-84;
Anglo-Saxon, 100;
Carlovingian, 119, 120;
Romanesque, 134;
Gothic, 146, 147.
Chalandon, M., 140.
Charlemagne, 106.
Charles V., inventory of, 136, 144.
Chessboard, 150.
Chessmen, 103, 104.
Christ, representation of, in early times, 50, 51.
Cividale, 78.
Clementinus, diptych of, 36.
Clovis, 22.
Cologne, Museum, 127.
Combs, ceremonial, 126, 127.
Constantine the Great, the Emperor, 27.
Constantine V., the Emperor, 71.
Constantine VI., the Emperor, 71.
Constantine VII., the Emperor, 84.
Consular diptychs, 3, _et seq._
Cortona Reliquary, 85, 92.
Croziers, 131-133, 142, 152.
Darmstadt, 120.
Dresden, 80, 88.
Echternach codex, 121.
Essen, 118.
Etschmiadzin book cover, 52, 55.
Felix, diptych of, 13.
Florence, Bargello, 22, 27, 39-42, 49, 64, 74, 76, 82, 88, 89,
90, 117, 133, 138, 139, 147, 150.
Frankfort, 116.
Garnier, M., 140.
Gérard, Bishop of Limoges, 132.
Gotfredus, Archbishop of Milan, 127.
Grandison, Bishop, triptych of, 152, 153.
Gregory the Great, Pope, 10.
Hadrian, Pope, 36.
Halberstadt, Cathedral, 21.
Hanover, Provincial Museum, 90.
Harbaville triptych, 85, 86, 87, 90, 92.
Heraklius, the Emperor, 66, 67.
Honorius, the Emperor, 5, 12, 13, 18.
Iconoclasm of the Emperors, 70-75.
Irene, the Empress, 29, 71, 72, 74.
Justinian, the Emperor, 6, 7, 18, 20, 28.
Lampadius, tablet of, 21, 22.
Le Bourget, Church, 140.
Leo III., the Emperor, 70, 71.
Leo VI., the Emperor, 75.
Liège, Episcopal Museum, 90.
Lipsanoteca, the, 42.
Liverpool Museum, 17, 20, 21, 33, 36, 58, 92, 121, 145, 149, 150.
London, British Museum, 5, 23, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 55, 64, 67, 68,
75, 78, 100, 102, 103, 110, 120, 127, 128,
131, 133, 134, 144, 147, 152, 153.
—— Victoria and Albert Museum, 12, 32, 35, 48, 56, 68, 73, 74, 76,
77, 80, 98, 101, 102, 103, 115, 125,
131, 142, 143, 144, 151, 152, 154, 155.
Lorsch, Abbey of, 125.
Manchester, John Rylands Library, 122, 123, 154.
Maximian, the Throne of, 49, 52, 54, 58-67, 92.
Melisanda, Princess, 134.
Metz, Cathedral, 55, 114.
Meyrick Collection, 151.
Milan, Castello, 67.
—— Cathedral, 56, 58, 127.
—— Trivulzio Collection, 25, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 58, 68, 91,
118, 124.
Mirror covers, 148, 149.
Monza, Basilica at, 10, 22, 24, 31, 33, 99, 114.
Mopsuete, Council of, 35.
Morard, Abbot, 132.
Munich, Library, 26, 118, 119, 144.
—— Museum, 48, 58.
Nancy, Cathedral, 127.
Nicephorus Phocas, 85, 95.
Nicolle, Jehan, 144.
Nicomachi and Symmachi, diptych of the, 12, 35, 45.
Oliphants, 73, 74.
Orestes, diptych of, 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 22, 31.
Otto the Great, the Emperor, 118.
Otto II., the Emperor, 124.
Otto III., the Emperor, 65 _n._, 124.
Oxford, Bodleian, 126.
Paris, Louvre, 40, 45 _n._, 69, 75, 87, 90, 110, 119, 134,
135-141, 150, 152, 154.
Paris Bibliothèque nationale, 13, 20, 34, 52, 55, 57, 92, 93,
110, 115.
—— Musée de Cluny, 12, 32, 49, 51, 76, 83, 114, 118, 122,
134, 149.
—— Collection Martin le Roy, 142.
Pavia, Certosa, 154.
Philoxenus, diptych of, 20.
Pirano casket, 78.
Poissy, Abbey of, 154.
Prague, 25.
Probianus, diptych of, 7, 8, 45, 49, 55, 110.
Probus, diptych of, 8, 9, 12.
Pyxes, 48-51.
Quedlinburg, 120.
Quirinalis diptychon, 32.
Rambona, diptych of, 97.
Ravenna, 4, 13, 26, 27, 28, 50, 52, 53, 58-67, 74.
Romanus and Eudoxia, 13, 92, 93.
Rome, Barbarini Library, 20, 27.
—— Kircherian Museum, 28, 81, 82.
—— Monastery of St. Gregory, 132.
—— St. Peter’s, the Throne of St. Peter, 83.
—— Count Stroganoff, 62, 90, 92.
—— Vatican, 97, 125, 126.
Romulus, the Apotheosis of, 23.
Rouen Cathedral, Ivory Book of, 37, 38.
St. Barnaby, relics of, 135.
St. Caletricus, Bishop of Chartres, 99.
St. Columba, 105.
St. Columbanus, 105.
St. Gall, monastery of, 105, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117, 130.
St. Gauzelin, comb of, 127.
St. Gregory and King David, 22, 24, 25, 31.
St. Gregory, crozier of, 132.
St. Heribert, comb of, 127.
St. Ives, Bishop of Chartres, 133.
St. Loup, comb of, 127.
St. Lupicien, Ivory Book of, 50, 52, 54.
St. Nicasius, diptych of, 130.
St. Petersburg, 18, 114, 128.
Salerno, Cathedral, 98.
Salting Collection, 144, 151, 152.
Sens, Cathedral, 127.
Sividius, diptych of, 14.
Soltykoff Collection, 152.
Spitzer Collection, 116, 151, 152.
Stilicho, diptych of, 11, 12.
Symmachus, 6.
Symmachi, diptych of the, 12, 32, 48.
Telemachus, 18.
Theodolinda, Queen, 10, 99.
Theodora, the Empress, 72.
Theodosius I., the Emperor, 3, 5, 21.
Theophano, the Empress, 121, 122, 124.
Theophilus, the Emperor, 72.
Tongres, Cathedral, 38, 67, 118.
Tournai, Cathedral, 130.
Trèves, Cathedral, 68, 69.
Troyes, Cathedral, 84.
Tuotilo, 111, 112.
_Urcei_, 127, 128.
Utrecht, Episcopal Museum, 90.
Venice, Doge’s Palace, 90.
Veroli casket, 76, 77, 78, 82.
Vienna, Museum, 27, 28, 74, 78, 90.
Volterra casket, 76, 83.
Werden, casket of, 56.
Zurich, 33, 108, 109.
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