Bartolomeo Bellano (attribution),
Saint Jerome and the Lion, c. 1490-1495.

Bronze, 25 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

 

 

Ivories

 

Ivory is also one of the most valuable materials for the arts. It is easily cut and polished; the tone imparted to it by time is warm and mellow, while its grain enhances the beauty of the workmanship. Hence, the ancients fully recognised its merit, employing it not only in their valuable furniture, but also in sculpture on a larger scale. Egypt could scarcely have overlooked such a beautiful material, as we see what a large role it played. Asia Minor also employed ivory for its luxury goods, such as the hilts of its weapons. In the Louvre collections, we are able to admire the spirit breathed into their roaring lions by the sculptors of Nineveh and Khorsabad.

Amongst both the Romans and Greeks, ivory was used to make the elegant caskets in which ladies contained their ornaments and various toiletries. Also made of ivory were the handles of the mirrors in which they studied the effect of their costume and of the flabellum[17] which was used to cool the air around them. Some of these ancient works, still surviving in collections, show the advancement of the art with the use of ivory.

Classic art itself, which still reflected the pure taste of the Greeks, was already weakened in its transition through the Roman Empire. But a still more thorough transformation was brought about after the establishment of the Eastern Empire. We have, so to say, an indicator of the state of ivory carving during the transition in the curious figure of the 3rd or 4th century now in the Musée de Cluny. It still manifests a certain grandeur and we, thereby, see that the spirit of the old style had not yet quite died out. Byzantine monuments in which abundant ornamentation eclipses the correctness of design are very numerous; the most interesting from a historic point of view are the Consular diptychs. These have the great advantage of bearing fixed dates and thus showing the state of the art at a precise moment. The Cabinet of Medals in the National Library possesses the oldest specimens of the kind. These leaves of carved ivory were offered by the new consul to his constituents, that is, the members of the Senate, or Conscript Fathers, who conferred the office to him. The consul during this time was most often represented seated upon a throne supported by two lions, holding the mappa circensis[18] in one hand and a sceptre surmounted by reigning emperors in the other. These carved tablets also included the public games celebrated at his expense, as well as the presents distributed to the people, typified, for instance, by slaves emptying bags of coins in various measures.

The oldest diptych in the Library bears the year 428. It represents the Consul Flavius Felix standing in the tribunal at the games, the partly-drawn curtains raised on either side. Engraved on the border are his names and some of his titles, the remainder of these having been completed on the second tablet now lost. The translated caption reads: “Of Flavius Felix, most illustrious citizen, Count and Master of the two militias, a patrician, and consul.” This monument of a consul of the Western Empire was long preserved in the Abbey of Saint-Junien at Limoges. The remaining tablet was procured for the Cabinet of Medals in 1808.

The second fragment, from Autun, bears no image but also makes reference to a Consul of the West, Flavius Petrus Sabbatus Justinianus, elected in 516. Complete copies held elsewhere were used to restore the distich on the ivory tablet in the Library, translated it reads: “I, Consul, offer to the Fathers these gifts, of slight value, indeed, but highly honourable.” Then, from the year 525 and the Eastern Empire, the diptych of Flavius Theodorus Philoxenus Sotericus Philoxenus. Only his bust appears on a medallion, above which is another of an elegantly dressed female figure presumed to be the personification of Constantinople. The Greek inscription says: “I, Philoxenus, created consul, offer this gift to the all-wise Senate.” Charles the Bald gave this perfect diptych to the Abbey of St Corneille, near Compiegne. It reached the Cabinet of Medals still enclosed in the silver-plated wooden frame made by the Benedictine monks at the time it was deposited among their treasures, a circumstance rendering it doubly interesting.

The next century is illustrated in the Cluny by the beautiful plaque which shows a woman standing by an altar holding two inverted flaming torches in her hands. This plaque, found at the bottom of a well at Montier-en-Dier, formed one of the doors of a large shrine brought from Rome by Saint Bercharius to enrich the church of the monastery he founded during the reign of Childeric.

The art of the 10th century is characterised by the authentic Byzantine bas-relief representing Christ crowning the Emperor Otho II and his wife Theophanu. At the feet of the Emperor, a figure is crouched in the most humble manner and covered with a cloak full of stars. This ivory seems to have been carved in honour of the marriage between Otho, Emperor of the West, with the daughter of Romanus II, Emperor of the East. It is interesting to compare this purely Byzantine piece with another plaque of Italian origin which represents Christ on the Cross between Mary and St John, with details of Byzantine emblems and figures of saints in the circular arches and in medallions. The cover of a Gospel shows, with its ivory carvings, the filigree framing enriched with gems of the era.

As a transition between the 10th and 11th centuries, we refer to the two plates, also at the Cluny, carved on both sides; one side represents Christian subjects taken from the life of the Saviour, and on the other some mythological emblems of more recent date. More interestingly, its style of ornamentation seems to indicate Oriental influence. Fully into the 11th century, we see a work of certain date in the glass case of the Cabinet of Medals. This also represents Christ crowning the Emperor Romanus IV and Eudoxia, who ascended the throne of the East in 1067. This ivory tablet likely formed part of a triptych and was used as a cover for a Gospel preserved in the metropolitan church of St John at Besançon. Not far off is another complete binding that still has its two leaves or shutters. Here, the principal subject is Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St John, and Constantine the Great, with his mother, St Helena, praying at his feet. On the leaves, medallions occupied by five saints are framed in an ornamental border.