Physical description
Panel, relief in whale's bone tapering towards the top, The Adoration of the Magi. The Virgin dominates the relief. She is shown haloed, seated beneath a round arch from which hangs a short curtain which is looped round columns at the sides; Covering her head is a distinctive pleated head dress, the so-called gauffered coif. This is topped by a jewelled diadem. She is seated on a throne entirely hidden by her body. She holds a flower in her right hand and with her left supports the Child, who is seated on her left knee, his right hand raised in benediction and holding a book in his left. To the left the three Kings, crowned and carrying long staves, stand offering gifts. At the feet of the Virgin are foliage scrolls and a small date-palm. On the roof of the rather fantastic building above the Virgin's head are figures of a man blowing a horn (now broken away) and an owl. In a panel at the bottom is a centaur with a bow and arrows and two lionesses fighting with a bear and a boar. The elaborately pleated robes are decorated with lines of dots and edged with foliate and geometrical designs. On the back, near the lower right-hand corner, are three concentric inscribed circles. Relief in whale's bone tapering towards the top.
Place of Origin
Spain (north, made)
Date
ca. 1120-1150 (made)
Artist/maker
Unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques
Carved whalebone (identified as the radius of the Rorqual, or Finner whale)
Dimensions
Height: 36.5 cm at left, Height: 35.4 cm at right, Width: 16 cm at bottom, Width: 10 cm at top, Depth: 3.5 cm, Weight: 0.84 kg
Object history note
From the Webb collection, £218. Formerly in the collection of Prince Soltykoff.
Historical significance: This relief is one of the strangest surviving representations of the Adoration of the Magi and the largest surviving medieval carving in bone. The artist's love of decoration can be seen in the elaborately pleated drapery edged with geometric designs; even the area around the Virgins feet is filled by foliate scrolls and a small tree.
Despite the oddness, the sculpture is the work of a truly gifted if ideosyncratic craftsman, who has created a work of art of great majesty and striking power. The scene of the Adoration of the Magi, with the kings represented as pilgrims is said to have been very popular along the road to Santiago de Compostela. The liminal iconography of the plaque, with the beasts fighting at the feet of the Virgin below, and an owl, a symbol of darkness, above, might be interpreted as reflecting the circumstances of 'reconquista' in which the object was produced.
Historical context note
The present relief was thought to be of English origin but it is now established that it was made in Northern Spain. It is stylistically closely related to the figure of the Virgin and Child in bone which was found in Spain, now preserved in the Louvre and the production of ivories in Leon. Iconographically closest is a tympanum on the twelfth-century church of Sta. Maria at Uncastillo: there is a similar disposition of elements, and the details are the same, even down to the capital of the arch. The unusual but very distinctive gauffered coil of the Virgin seems only to be found in sculptures in Northern Spain in the Romanesque period.
The precise function of the plaque has not been ascertained. It is too bulky for a bookcover, and its irregular shape would make it unsuitable for most purposes; it was perhaps a portable vortive image.
Descriptive line
Panel relief, whale's bone tapering towards the top, The Adoration of the Magi, Northern Spain, ca. 1120-50
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Paul Williamson. European Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum. London, 1996, p.41.
Inventory of Art Objects acquired in the Year 1866. Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition. Vol. 1. London : Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1868., p. 17.
Beckwith, John. The Adoration of the Magi in Whalebone. London: H. M. S. O., 1966.
Beckwith, John. Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England. London: Harvey, Miller and Redcalf, 1972. cat no. 63.
Lasko, Peter. Ars Sacra: 800-1200. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. p. 172.
Williamson, Paul, ed. The Medieval Treasury: the Art of the Middle Ages in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986. pp. 126-127.
Longhurst, Margaret H. Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory. London: Published under the Authority of the Board of Education, 1927-1929. part ii. pp. 87-88.
Gaborit-Chopin, Danielle. Ivories du Moyen Age. Fribourg: Office du Livre, cop., 1978. p. 119.
Williamson, Paul. An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carvings. London: H. M. S. O., 1982. p. 16., pl. 17.
Avril, François, Altet, Barral i Altet, Xavier and Gaborit-Chopin, Danielle. Le Monde Roman 1060-1220: Les Royaumes d'Occident. Paris, 1983. pp. 313-314., pl. 279.
Estella Marcos, Margarita-Mercedes. La Escultura del Marfil en España Románica y Gótica. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1984. pp. 77-78, 95-96. fig. 18.
Kendrick, Thomas Downing. Late Saxon and Viking Art. London: Methuen, 1949. p. 147.
Talbot Rice, David. English Art, 871-1100. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. p. 171.
Stone, Lawrence. Sculpture in Britain: the Middle Ages. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955. p. 64. pl. 41.
Hunt, John. The Adoration of the Magi. Connoisseur. April 1954, CXXXIII. p. 156.
Bernis, Carmen. La "Adoración de los Reyes" del siglo XII, del Museo Victoria y Alberto, es de escuela española. Archivo Español de Arte. 1960, XXXIII, no. 129. pp. 82-84.
cf. Anderson, Ruth Matilda. Pleated Headresses of Castilla and Leon. New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1942. pp. 51-79.
Grodecki, Louis. Ivories Français. Paris, 1947. p. 59.
Williamson, Paul, ed. The Medieval Treasury: the Art of the Middle Ages in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986.
Ayres, L. M. The Illustration of the Codex Calixtinus: A Norman Dimension. In: Williams, John and Stones, Alison, eds. The Codex Calixtinus and the Shrine of St. James. Tübingen: Narr, 1922. p. 250. fig. 10.
Williamson, Paul, ed. European Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996. p. 41.
Williamson, P. The Medieval Treasury. London, 1986, p.126.
The Art of Medieval Spain A.D. 500-1200. New York, 1994. cat. no. 141.
Williamson, Paul. Medieval Ivory Carvings. Early Christian to Romanesque. London, V&A Publishing, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2010, pp. 358-361, cat.no. 91
Exhibition History
English Medieval Art (Victoria and Albert Museum 01/01/1930-31/12/1930)
The Art of Medieval Spain A.D. 500-1200 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
The Grand Atelier (Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels 05/10/2006-20/01/2008)
Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England: 700-1200 (Victoria and Albert Museum 08/05/1974-07/07/1974)
Materials
Whalebone
Techniques
Carving
Subjects depicted
Jesus Christ; Mary (Virgin Mary); Book; Lions; Star; Owl; The Christ Child; Palm tree; Magi; Centaur; Curtain; Wise Men; Diadem; Nimbus
Categories
Sculpture; Religion; Christianity; Plaques & Plaquettes
Collection code
SCP
