Sarah Guerin helps us understand more deeply the trade and role of medieval devotional ivories, writes Emma Edwards.
A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to hold in my hands an exquisite ivory carving of the Deposition of Christ. It was made of walrus ivory, probably in York in the late 12th century. To hold that object closely, to feel the polished surface and the detailed carving that renders Christ’s dead body in the arms of a weeping Joseph of Arimathea with the utmost pathos, is to experience some of the most moving emotion that devotional sculpture can achieve in the hands of a master at their art.
It is topical that Sarah Guerin’s study of ivory carving in France in the subsequent century, French Gothic Ivories: Material Theologies and the Sculptor’s Craft, helps to illuminate the precious value that society and the Church in particular saw in the material of ivory. This, at a time when the very works themselves have had their monetary value stripped in society’s attempt to stamp out the violence and criminality of elephant poaching. The exceptional corpus of French Gothic ivory carving, produced during a period when Paris became one of the epicentres of craftsmanship and finesse, is the focus of Guerin’s book. The author brings alive this very world, describing far-reaching trading routes that provided the elephant tusks, the bustling trade and production in Paris, the shopping lists of the elite patrons of these objects.
At an annual general chapter in Cîteaux, Abbot Bohuslaus (1248-58) of the Cistercian abbey of Zwettl in Austria, takes advantages of his travel expenses to purchase an ivory tabernacle. Henry III’s queen, Eleanor of Provence, instructs a clerk to purchase 3.5 pounds of raw ivory to be made into images. We meet Dame Ade, the tabletier, whose wealth tells of long-standing success in the ivory business in medieval Paris. We are taken to the Rue de la Tabletterie and asked to imagine the bustling shops selling cutlery sets, toiletry sets, devotional images and statuettes of the Virgin and Child.
Guerin goes on to explain the importance of the very material of ivory in the works of art created during this period, alongside medieval scholarly notions of the exegetical and scientific understanding of the raw material. Using rich, thought-provoking sources, she explores the typological and scientific meanings that give the statues and statuettes, pyxes, diptychs and triptychs a spiritual depth beyond the iconography of the purely figurative image. A Sedes Sapientiae rendered in ivory echoed the very material of the Throne of Solomon; the Blessed Virgin Mary in ivory could be viewed exegetically as the Ark of the Covenant. Ivory also signified chastity: the elephant was regarded as a moral beast with cold blood, which transferred these qualities to its tusks.
Ivory was, therefore, the most suitable material with which to create large statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary used on the feast of the Assumption at the great Abbey of Saint-Denis. Guerin goes on to explore how a group of large ivory statues from Saint Denis (a Virgin and Child flanked by two angels) played a key role in the liturgical practice of the monks. In the procession following Terce that culminated in Mass at the high altar, the monks sang antiphons and responsories – for example Felix namque and Stirps Jesse – in particular settings, where the visual environment created in statues and stained glass visually represented the text. The imagery and exegetical meanings created a rich opportunity for devotional engagement as the monks emerged in front of the ivory statues of the Glorification of the Virgin (Guerin’s title) on the high altar, singing Post partum Virgo. Other works of art explored include diptychs and triptychs of the Passion of Christ, used on the altar where the very material quality of the ivory represented the New Law as it was enacted in the sacrifice of the Mass.
In contrast, Guerin’s exploration of the use and ownership of small devotional ivories creates an engaging window into the private lives of (mainly) aristocratic women in France and Flanders in the 13th and early 14th centuries. Beatrice of Brabant, Jeanne of Flanders and Marguerite of Flanders, for example, all had connections to intellectually elite spiritual advisers from the Dominican convent at Lille that had been founded in 1224. The prior, Michel de Neuvireuil, was named in Jeanne’s will and acted as a confident of Marguerite; he was connected to scholarly debates that helped to spread wider devotion to Our Lady. Records of ivories bequeathed in wills and donated with the foundation and patronage of particular religious houses helps to shape a world where these little ivory masterpieces were inextricably linked to the social, economic and spiritual contexts in which they were created. Inventories from the Abbey of Longchamp, founded by Isabelle of France (sister to Louis IX) in 1255 detail the many luxury possessions (silks, rock crystal and so on) endowed and brought by the aristocratic nuns who entered the abbey. The 1325 inventory details a number of images of Our Lady of which these women – educated and raised around courtly fashions and likely versed in a nuanced spiritual understanding of the material – would have had a sophisticated understanding and appreciation.
Many of the small statuettes owned by these elite customers and used as part of their daily private devotions were frequently held, as beautifully demonstrated by an image of St Hedwig from the Hedwig Codex, now in the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. In her hands she clasps her ivory statuette of the Virgin and Child, her shoes, a rosary and a small prayer book. The prayers recited in the Books of Hours, owned and used daily by many of Hedwig’s contemporaries, were adapted from the Little Office of Our Lady and thus, as Guerin comments, were eminently suited for use alongside a small ivory statuette. The wear visible on many surviving examples provides a physical connection to those original owners, and recalls my own recent experience. They serve as a perpetual reminder that these objects were not static images but to be used as part of spiritual exercise, prayer and meditation.
Perhaps one day the distaste that has covered almost all historical ivories with the present ban may meet with gentler eyes. The narrow lens through which secular society weighs the world lacks an understanding of human fallibility and forgiveness that lies at the very heart of these beautiful works of art.
Sarah Guerin’s French Gothic Ivories: Material Theologies and the Sculptor’s Craft (CUP, £90) is out now
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