50 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



entation in the Temple. The execution is Hfelike and effec- 

 tive, without any striving after effect. More archaic and 

 perhaps even more devotional, although artistically less 

 successful, is a thirteenth century diptych, also of the 

 French School, where the six relief carvings, three on each 

 leaf, give in succession, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Wash- 

 ing of Feet, the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the 

 Betrayal by Judas, and the Crucifixion. In marked contrast 

 to the sobriety of this work is a French diptych of the four- 

 teenth century in which the representations are much more 

 likelife and dramatic, but less deeply imbued with a purely 

 religious spirit; there are here but four designs, the Entry 

 into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Betrayal, and the Cruci- 

 fixion, but the carver has been strikingly successful in the 

 grouping of the figures and in their individual attitude and 

 bearing. The masterly execution and the dramatic intensity 

 of these compositions would lead us to suppose that this dip- 

 tych belongs to the very end of the fourteenth century. 



The peerless Morgan Collection embraces among its other 

 treasures of medieval art a remarkable ivory polyptych, of 

 four leaves, carved with a series of representations of the 

 Passion, the work being done in a manner characteristic of 

 Gothic art in ivory carving at its very best. Each of the 

 sad scenes, eight in number, is feelingly depicted, sometimes 

 but three figures entering into the composition, while in 

 others as many as eight are not unskilfully crowded into the 

 narrow compass of the panel. All the carvings are animated 

 by the earnestly religious spirit of the Early Renaissance, to 

 which period this valuable and interesting work belongs. 



The Coronation of the Virgin, in the Louvre Museum, 

 has long ranked as one of the most important productions of 

 the French carvers of the thirteenth century. While it is 

 impossible to deny that the composition is rather rigid in 

 outline and lacks the beauty of some later works of the French 



