Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design - The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design
Deposition; Joseph of Arimathea holding Christ's body.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st third of 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 1978: England, end of the 13th century.
Detroit 1997: France, 1st quarter of the 14th century.
Paris 2009: France (Paris), c. 1320-1340.
Museum's opinion 2013: France, c. 1280-1290.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Parts of the back are carved in the round and other sections are flat with crosshatching (back of Christ's torso) or flat and smooth (back of Joseph of Arimathea).
Object Condition
Four holes in the back.
Missing: lower part of the piece, including the legs of Joseph of Arimathea and feet of Christ.
Comments
Probably by the same hand as a corpus (A.2-1921) in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Gaborit-Chopin 1978 and Detroit 1997). Until recently, this piece was believed to have been carved by the same artist as OA 9961 in the Musée du Louvre and Inv. 436 in the Mayer Van Den Bergh Museum in Antwerp. However, it is now believed that, though it was probably part of the same tabernacle, it has been attributed to a different hand (see Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Paris 2009).
Provenance
Collection of Christian Langaard (b. 1849, d. 1922), Oslo (acquired in Berlin between 1914 and 1918); his gift to the museum in 1923.
Bibliography
E. Hannover, Korsnedtagelsen, en fransk Elfenbensskulptur fra Middelalderen, Kunst og Kultur (Bergen, 1920), p. 195.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 142-144; II, no. 227bis; III, pl. LIX.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), pp. 150 and 210 (in relation to no. 244).
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 136.
Fører gjennem Kunstindustrimuseet i Oslo (Oslo, 1926), I, pl. 8.
H. Nieuwdorp, Museum Mayer Van den Bergh (Antwerp, 1992), p. 91.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les ivoires gothiques français', in Louvre. Trésors du Moyen Âge. Dossier de l'art, no. 16, Dec. 1993-Jan. 1994, p. 38.
Un trésor gothique: la chasse de Nivelles - Schatz aus den Trümmern: der Silberschrein von Nivelles und die europäische Hochgotik, exhibition catalogue, Schnütgen-Museum, and Paris, Musée du Moyen Âge, 1995-1996, no. 45.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, p. 185.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), p. 365.
Les premiers retables, XIIe-début du XVe siècle : une mise en scène du sacré, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 10 April-6 July 2009, dir. by P.-Y. Le Pogam and C. Vivet-Peclet, p. 134, no. 32.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 25 and 27.
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