This is an ivory diptych, probably Eastern French or Lower Rhenish, made in about 1350-1375, representing the Virgin and Child and the Crucifixion on the other. Both groups appear beneath gothic canopies and the hair of the figures and trefoils have been gilded.
Despite being accepted as a genuine fourteenth-century ivory in the 1862 Exhibition Catalogue, by the time of its acquisition in 1891 the object was described as 'a reproduction of an ivory diptych of the 14th century, French, 19th century'. However, despite the poor quality of execution, there seems no reason to doubt the work's authenticity. Stylistically, the high-waisted figures, with their flat, broad faces, indicate a centre of production outside Paris, perhaps in the Lorraine or the Lower Rhineland.

The devotional diptych is in many ways the object type most associated with the notion of Gothic ivory carving. The earliest examples probably date to the 1240s; these are complex, large and ambitious works that emerged, somewhat surprisingly, with no obvious precursors. The owners of ivory diptychs sometimes appear within their images. Such portraits indicate that they were special requests on the part of their commissioners, and they parallel the similar figures that appear in manuscripts and panel paintings of the period. The iconography of Gothic diptychs oscillated between two poles. The first of which is the desire to present narratives (Life of Christ and Virgin Mary) for envisaging. The second was the use of non-narrative images to form the focus of devotion.