IVORY CARVINGS.
In the former part of this work we have noticed the ivory carvings of
the ancient world, and it is proposed in the following pages to give an
outline of ivory carvings of the Middle Ages and of the comparatively
modern periods.
One of the oldest and most important works in ivory carving of the sixth
century is the celebrated Chair of St. Maximinian, now preserved in the
metropolitan church of Ravenna. It is entirely overlaid with plates of
ivory, and has five upright panels in the front and below the seat which
are carved with figure subjects. The legs and back are overlaid with
ivory plates, carved with animals, foliage, and figures, and on the rail
in front of the seat is carved the Archbishop’s monogram. It is
altogether a very fine and rich piece of Romanesque work.
Very important works in ivory were executed in the time of the Roman
Empire, in the nature of “Consulare” diptychs and triptychs. These
Consular diptychs were originally made of wood or ivory, and were hinged
tablets that folded over each other, the outside surfaces being carved
elaborately, with a portrait or figure of the Consul or chief magistrate
of the province in the centre, the inside surfaces being used for
writing purposes. These consulares were also called “pugillares” from
being portable objects that could be carried conveniently in the hand or
_fist_. They were usually made as presents to be given to important
people of distant provinces, or to very intimate friends of the Consuls.
After the adoption of the Christian religion by the Roman Empire it was
the custom of the Consuls to send these consulares in the form of a
diptych or triptych, as a present to the bishop of a church in his
province, to show his patronage and goodwill, and they were usually
placed on the altar of the church, in order that the congregation should
see them and remember the giver in their prayers. This custom led to the
making of the diptychs (_two-leaved_) and the triptychs
(_three-leaved_), for the purpose of the altar decorations, and usually
on the plain inner leaves were inscribed the names of the newly baptized
(_neophytes_) Christians, benefactors to the church, dignitaries of the
same, and Christian martyrs. The use of these led to the later
magnificent painted and carved altars of the triptych order in Christian
churches. During the persecution by the iconoclastic Emperors of the
Eastern Empire a great number of these triptychs were made in wood and
in ivory of Greek workmanship, carved or painted on the interior faces
with representations of saints and sacred personages. These were used as
portable altars, and were carried about the person of those who used to
pray before them in secret. Many of them were also of a good size, and
became later important objects that were placed above or near the
“prie-dieus” in private rooms or chapels. The smaller pugillares, and
larger ecclesiastical diptychs were used in later times to form the
coverings of costly illuminated books, and it is owing to this use of
them that so many have been preserved to our day.
Byzantine sculpture and ivory carvings of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries were invested with the same severe and solemn character that
was the distinguishing feature of the ceiling and wall mosaics of the
same period. The figures were long and attenuated, the draperies very
stiff and angular and arranged in parallel folds, which, with the German
phase of Christian art, developed later into a still more angular and
rocky character. In France, on the other hand, in the thirteenth century
there arose a splendid and original school of sculpture, entirely
native, whose richest efforts culminated in such masterly achievements
as the figure sculpture of the cathedrals of Rheims, Chartres, and
Amiens.
[Illustration: Fig. 111.—Coronation of the Virgin; Ivory Carving
relieved with Colours and Gold; Thirteenth-Century French.
(Jacquemart.)]
Small statuettes in ivory were made in great quantities in the Middle
Ages, and as an example of the French school of ivory carving of this
period there is an exceedingly fine representation of the “Coronation of
the Virgin” (Fig. 111) in the Louvre. In this work the figure of Christ
has the dress and lineaments of Philip III. (the Bold), the son of St.
Louis, and that of the Virgin is personified as Mary, his Queen,
daughter of Henry III. (the Debonnaire), Duke of Lorraine and Brabant.
This example dates from about 1274, and is certainly one of the most
perfectly finished works of French sculpture of that time.
[Illustration: Fig. 112.—Image Painter; Fifteenth Century.]
Colour and rich decoration were seen very much on the sculpture of the
Middle Ages, for we find traces of it in the mediæval tombs, effigies,
and all kinds of statuary.
Some of the ancient diptychs had both ground and figures coloured and
perhaps gilt. Coloured and gilded statues and reliefs were common in
Germany and France, and are so to-day in those of the Roman and Greek
Christian churches.
[Illustration: Fig. 113.—Leaf of a Roman Diptych. (S.K.M.)]
The dresses of the figures are semé (sown) all over with fleurs-de-lis
and very rich diapers in gold and silver, on rich red, blue, and white
grounds. Statuary painting was a profession in the Middle Ages. The
illustration (Fig. 112), from a French fifteenth-century manuscript,
shows an image painter at work.
Returning to the ivory plaques or diptychs, the illustration at Fig. 113
is that of the most perfect and most beautiful specimen of antique ivory
carving that we have any knowledge of. It is now in the Kensington
Museum, and represents the figure of a young girl, or Bacchante, with a
younger girl attending her. The figure has a well-designed arrangement
of drapery hanging in graceful folds. She stands at an altar, and is in
the act of making an offering. A vigorously carved oak-tree with acorns
and foliage occupies the left top of the panel, and a border of a Greek
character surrounds it. The corresponding half of this plaque is in the
Cluny Museum in Paris. It was found at the bottom of a well at
Montier-en-Der, and is much injured. The latter half shows the figure of
a female standing at an altar, and holding in her hands inverted flaming
torches. These famous plaques, which measure nearly 12 inches by 5, are
supposed to have formed the doors of a large shrine or _châsse_ that was
brought from Rome in the days of Childeric. They are supposed to be
Roman work of the sixth or seventh century, though some think the work
is earlier: they are undoubtedly executed by a Greek artist. There are
many specimens of consular diptychs in the museums of London, Liverpool,
and the Continent. The earliest dates from about A.D. 250, and the
latest about A.D. 540. The Roman Consuls continued for nearly one
thousand years: the last Consul of Constantinople was Basilius (A.D.
541), and the last Consul of Rome was Paulinus (A.D. 536).
There is a large plaque of ivory in the British Museum which measures 16
inches by nearly 6 inches in width—the largest known—on which is carved
the figure of an archangel holding in one hand a globe and in the other
a long staff. He stands on the top of a flight of steps under a round
arch supported by Corinthian pillars. Its date is uncertain, but is
probably of the seventh century; it is grandly designed and of excellent
workmanship (Fig. 114).
A work of the same or slightly earlier period is the beautiful ivory
vase (Fig. 115), which has well proportioned horizontal divisions and
well-designed ornamentation. The style of design suggests a copy from
metal work.
Triptychs, as we have seen, were used above and behind the altar tables,
and were at first portable, so that they could be carried away after the
service was ended; but later they became the “retables,” fixed altars,
or “reredoses,” and were carved or painted, or were partly executed in
both ways.
[Illustration: Fig. 114.—Ivory Carving with Archangel. (B.M.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 115.—Ivory Vase; Roman, Seventh Century. (B.M.)]
Many objects of secular art, and articles that the wealthy could afford
to use in every-day life, were made in ivory during the Middle Ages,
such as book-covers, toilet-combs, mirror-cases, chessmen, horns, hilts
of knives, swords, and daggers, caskets, small coffers, &c., in addition
to the objects required for use in religious ceremonies, as pyxes,
croziers, crucifixes, crosses, and taus, the latter being an early form
of the pastoral staff. The pastoral staffs of ivory are not very common,
and most examples known belong to the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 116.—Pastoral Staff; German, Thirteenth Century.
(S.K.M.)]
The woodcut (Fig. 116) of the pastoral staff shows the subject of the
Crucifixion on one side and the Virgin and Child with attendant angels
on the other. It is German work of the thirteenth century, and is now in
the Cathedral of Metz.
An older specimen of the pastoral staff, which Mr. Maskell thinks is
English work, is carved in bone with interlacing scrolls, and has a
grotesque and serpent forming the crook decorations (Fig. 117).
[Illustration: Fig. 117.—Pastoral Staff; Bone Caning, English; Twelfth
Century.]
In the fourteenth century ivory carvings were in great demand, judging
from the great number of the various ivories of that date which have
been preserved.
Belonging to this period are the beautiful ivory hunting horns called
“oliphants” (from elephant) that were much used by kings and nobles in
hunting, and were sometimes mounted in gold.
The ivory carvings known as pierced or “open-work” are usually of very
fine and delicate workmanship. The illustration (Fig. 118) shows two
compartments of a larger plaque in the Kensington Museum, the full size
of the originals that have sacred figures under Gothic canopies of
fourteenth-century work. It is not known exactly to what country they
belong, as ivory carvings as a rule are undated and unsigned, but the
woodcut (Fig. 119) represents an undoubted piece of English work. It is
one leaf of a diptych made for Grandison, Bishop of Exeter.
[Illustration: Fig. 118.—Ivory Carving; Fourteenth Century Pierced Work.
(S.K.M.)]
Few names of artists, as ivory carvers, have come down to us from the
Middle Ages. One named Jean Lebraellier was the carver to Charles V. of
France; Jehan Nicolle is another who has signed his name on an ivory pax
in the British Museum. Henry des Grès was a “pignier” or carver of combs
(1391). Héliot has dated work of 1392. Henry de Senlis, “tabletier,”
plaque carver of 1454, and Philip Daniel, “pignier” and “tabletier”
(1484), in Paris.
[Illustration: Fig. 119.—Ivory Diptych; English Work; Fourteenth
Century. (S.K.M.)]
The top of a Moorish casket from Spain, with Saracenic engraved ornament
of the eleventh century, is shown at Fig. 120, and a beautiful casket
from Italy, carved and engraved in bone, is illustrated at Fig. 121.
This is fourteenth-century work. Caskets and coffers made of slabs of
bone, carved and inlaid with figure subjects and armorial bearings, were
made extensively in Italy at this period, and used as marriage coffers.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.—Lid of Ivory Cabinet; Spanish; Eleventh
Century. (S.K.M.)]
Combs and mirror cases were naturally objects that received much
attention at the hands of the carver in ivory. A beautiful comb in the
British Museum (Fig. 122) belongs to the eleventh century, the central
scroll-work of which is very rich and ornate.
[Illustration: Fig. 121.—Coffer in Bone Carving and Engraved Work;
Italian; Fourteenth Century. (S.K.M.)]
Ceremonial combs, with finely carved ornamentation, have been found in
tombs of bishops, and many are preserved in churches that date from the
sixth to the fifteenth centuries. The mirror case, Fig. 123, is a
beautiful example of fourteenth-century work. It has the carved subject
of the “Siege of the Castle of Love”—a favourite subject for mirror case
decoration—and four lions forming the corners to the circular ring.
[Illustration: Fig. 122.—Ivory Comb; Eleventh Century.]
In reference to the ivory carver Héliot, mentioned above, Jacquemart
quotes—when speaking of his work, the oratory of carved ivory tablets in
the Cluny Museum that belonged to the Duchess of Burgundy—"Accounts of
Amiot Arnant from 1392 to 1393. Paid 500 livres to Berthelot Héliot,
‘varlet de chambre’ of the duke (Philip the Bold), for two large ivory
tablets with images, one of which is the ‘Passion of Our Lord,’ and the
other the ‘Life of Monsieur Saint Jean-Baptiste,’ which he has sold for
the Carthusians."
[Illustration: Fig. 123.—Ivory Mirror Case. (S.K.M.)]
Many celebrated artists have doubtless worked in ivory, but there is
nothing to prove this except the supposed hand-work of the artists.
Michelangelo is credited with working in ivory; Cellini, Donatello,
Agostino, Carracci, and other famous names in Italian art have been
mentioned as ivory carvers; and in the seventeenth century a celebrated
ivory carver named Copé, but better known as Fiamingo, who was Flemish
by birth. He made many basins, ewers, tankards, and carved figures of
children in bas-relief. Fiamingo worked and lived in Rome at the end of
the sixteenth and during the first ten years of the seventeenth
centuries. He died in 1610. His work, like that of many other artists of
this period, was greatly influenced by the style of Rubens, and a
strongly marked realism in the manner of treating allegorical subjects
was the prevailing taste in painting and carving. Very fine tankards in
ivory, and basins, were carved by Fiamingo with bacchanalian scenes in a
realistic manner. The tankard from the Jones Collection (Fig. 124) is
believed to be the work of Fiamingo. It is a Flemish ivory mounted in
silver-gilt work of good design. The body of the tankard is spiritedly
carved with the figures of a nymph and satyr dancing, Silenus, and some
children carrying grapes.
Another Flemish artist in ivory was Francis von Bossuit, who spent a
great part of his life in Rome, and whose figure carvings are of great
value. Alessandro Algardi was an Italian artist of the seventeenth
century, who carved the ivory bas-relief of St. Leo going out to meet
Attila, now in St. Peter’s at Rome, and also a very fine bust of Cosimo
II. de’ Medici. One of the best ivory carvers that ever lived was
François Duquesnoy, known better as François Flamand (1594-1644); he was
a native of Brussels, and went to Rome when a young man for the purpose
of study. He supported himself in his _wanderjahr_ period by carving
little figures in ivory and wood. In the Cluny Museum and in the Louvre
some groups, and bas-reliefs of females and children, may be seen,
executed by Flamand, that are full of roundness and life, boldly
conceived and extremely graceful.
[Illustration: Fig. 124.—Ivory Tankard, Silver-gilt Mounted; Flemish;
Seventeenth Century. (S.K.M.)]
We have noticed how plentiful the ivory carvings were of the fourteenth
century period; but at the end of that century ivory sculpture fell in
abeyance, which lasted during almost the whole of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. This was due to the very great impulse given to
wood carving by the French, and even more so by the German wood
sculptors. Large wooden altar-pieces, or “retables,” came into fashion,
and also minute wooden portraits and statuettes, which for a long period
superseded ivory carvings; and in Germany a good deal of carving was
executed in “Speckstein” or Soapstone, a kind of drab-coloured
lithographic stone that was not difficult to work. Albert Dürer and
Lucas Cranach carved some very fine works in Speckstein. At the
beginning of the seventeenth century ivory carving became again in great
request.
The Germans carried the arts of ivory and miniature wood carving, as
they did the larger style of wood carving, to great perfection; in fact
to an astonishing degree of dexterity, that would compare with Chinese
or Japanese carving, but lacking in the restrained artistic power of the
latter nation’s productions. All kinds of astonishing creations are
preserved in the museums of subjects such as little ivory carvings of
skeletons in company with groups of female figures, miniature
hunchbacks, and beggars with diamonds for buttons on their dresses. Leo
Pronner, of Nuremberg, carved on a cherry-stone a hundred heads, that
required the aid of a magnifying glass to see the expressions, and later
Simon Troger, of the same city, produced many marvels in ivory figures
with brown wood dresses and other accessories in wood.
Many good ivories have been the work of Spanish carvers, and as a rule
they are tinted or coloured.
Nearly all the carvings in ivory that we have noticed have been
statuettes, reliefs, or objects in which the human figure predominates.
As a matter of fact there are very few ivories of any artistic value in
which the human figure is not the most important part of the
composition, purely ornamental work being very rare. Even in Saracenic
work, where the figure and animal representations are not found, the
amount of carved ivory work is limited, and the specimens are very
scarce.
[Illustration: Fig. 125.—Carved Ivory Panels of a Pulpit Door;
Saracenic. (S.K.M.)]
In an ancient Coptic church in Cairo there is a massive partition or
screen of ebony, in which is a central door and two side panels. This
screen has a rich display of inlaid ivory carved with arabesques, and
has ivory crosses in high relief. The screen is believed by Mr.
Butler—the author of “The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt”—to be a work
of the tenth century, and also to be the model on which the ivory
carving of the mosques was founded.
The ivory carvings in Saracenic work are usually found as carved or
chased panels, with arabesque designs, and surrounded with geometric
linear framing (Fig. 125).
The best of this type of work was executed in the fourteenth century.
Objects made of ivory alone are very rare in Saracenic art. The
illustration given of an ivory ink-horn is unique in this material, but
ink-horns of the same shape are common that have been made in copper and
brass.
Figure and animal carvings of Saracenic or Moorish design have been made
in Spain, and in some other countries under the rule of the Saracens,
but are not found in the Egyptian Saracenic.
China has always been prolific in the production of ivory carvings.
There are numerous statuettes of Confucius, Cheoü-lao, the god of old
age, of the Buddhist female divinity Kouan-in, and of other divinities.
Necklaces, pierced plaques for waist-belt decoration, and the _su-chus_
or rosaries, all are carved with a certain archaic quality and
quaintness, but of a minute and unsurpassed dexterity of workmanship.
The Chinese ivory fans of pierced work are beautiful and as delicate as
lace-work. Examples of these are very common.
[Illustration: Fig. 126.—Ivory Ink-Horn; Saracenic. (S.K.M.)]
The pen-cases called _pitongs_ are beautiful objects, carved with
dragons, flowers, and quaint figures in toy-like houses and gardens.
The “puzzle balls” are amongst the most wonderful of the Chinese
carvings in ivory, where quite a number of loose balls of lessening
sizes are contained within each other, and are all carved out of a solid
ball of ivory. The outer surfaces of each ball are also carved with
elaborate ornamentation. The method of cutting out these balls consists
in boring a number of holes at regulated distances on the surface to a
measured depth of the thickness of each outer shell, and then to cut
around the circumference of each hole with a steel tool made with a bent
end to suit the concentric curve of the sphere, and turned until each
shell is freed from its next smaller ball. The Chinese puzzle balls are
not very perfect examples of accurate turning, as the ornamentation
conceals the rough workmanship in a great degree, but still they are
marvels of skill and patience.
The Japanese carvings in ivory are better in an artistic sense than the
Chinese, and exhibit the same surprising beauty of finish and minuteness
of detail. All kinds of little cases for pens, jewels, powders and
perfumes; little divinities, small caskets and cabinets put together
with plaques of slabs of carved ivory, gilt and coloured with lacquers,
and also encrusted with lapis-lazuli, mother-of-pearl, and precious
stones. There is also the most wonderful little ivory figure and groups
of animal carvings called _netsukes_. These in many instances are works
of the highest order. Many of them are meant as embodied jokes, puns, or
satires. Some consist of groups of real or sham cripples, beggars with
monkeys on their backs, wrestlers, boxers, all kinds of domestic scenes,
warriors on foot and on horseback; other subjects full of dignity and
grace, and animal groups carved as no other people in the world can do.
These netsukes are used not only as ornaments that are treasured for
their own sakes, but also as dress-fasteners and as articles of personal
adornment by the better classes in Japan.
Many other uses for ivory carvings are found by the Japanese, such as
handles of swords and daggers, and some of their beautiful lacquered
panels have encrusted eagles and other birds beautifully carved, and
perched on the branches of trees, the latter being made from
mother-of-pearl, and sometimes the flowers, foliage, and fruit of tinted
ivory minutely chased.
India is famed for its extremely elaborate ivory carvings. The
elaborated richness of Oriental ornament is seen in the ivory carvings
of India more than in almost any other material except the goldsmiths’
work; but this may be more excused in such precious materials as ivory,
gold, or hand-made laces, where it is quite legitimate to give to the
ornament that necessary character of elaborate detail which always adds
to the preciousness of the material.
Sometimes the carved ivory cabinets from India have Biblical subjects in
the panels, which proves them to be works made to the order of the
European missionaries, by native artists.
The ivory jewel casket with gold mountings (Fig. 127) is thoroughly
Hindu in design and execution. Deified females with outstretched arms
form a natural palanquin for the seated figure of an Indian divinity;
other figures act as palanquin bearers, and the intervening spaces are
richly filled with characteristic foliage and fruit.
[Illustration: Fig. 127.—Ivory Casket with Gold Clasp and Hinge; Indian.
(Jacquemart.)]
Ivory carving is so extensively carried on throughout India that it
would be difficult to say in what part of the country it was not done.
In some districts ivory carving in certain articles is done to the
exclusion of others. Bison horn is carved at Ratnagiri.
Tortoiseshell is plentifully used for carving in Bombay. The Hindoos,
like the Chinese, carve fans in a wonderfully delicate manner. Ivory
bracelets, little elephants with all their trappings, tigers, oxen,
gondolas, fully-rigged ships, hunting scenes, gods and goddesses, &c.,
are all made in ivory throughout India.