72 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



The "Exposition Retrospective," one of the most at- 

 tractive features of the great Paris Exposition of 1900,* 

 contained a number of choice examples of ivory carving, 

 the exhibits being loaned by various institutions, churches, 

 and individual collectors. Among the examples of Ro- 

 man-Greek carving was the diptych of Justinianus (sixth 

 century) later acquired by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan; several 

 other good specimens of this and the immediately succeed- 

 ing periods served to illustrate the gradual falling off in 

 artistic excellence. A curious book cover from the tenth 

 century, known as the Evangelaire de Morienval, from the 

 church of Notre Dame de Noyon, offered a good example of 

 the medieval ivory carving of Western Europe under Byz- 

 antine influence. Very naturally, the best ivories in this 

 exhibition were of those worked in the thirteenth, four- 

 teenth, and fifteenth centuries by the great ivory carvers 

 of the French Renaissance School. Here the aim was to 

 select a number of thoroughly characteristic specimens, 

 avoiding, as far as possible, the monotony that might re- 

 sult from grouping together a large number of examples 

 of certain types of the Virgin and Child which became 

 more or less conventional in some of the Renaissance 

 workshops. It is interesting to note in this connection 

 that the best of the statuettes should be thirteenth-century 

 work, the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin of the Annuncia- 

 tion, loaned, respectively, by M. G. Chalandon and M. P. 

 Garnier. Here the restrained dignity of the pose, the 

 classic harmony of the drapery, the earnestness and beauty 

 of the faces, show us the pure art of the Early Renaissance 

 at its best. From the fourteenth century is one excellent 

 example, a seated figure of the Virgin bearing the Divine 

 Child on her lap, an exceedingly well-balanced composition, 



*See Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue officiel de I'exposition retrospective 

 de r art frangais. 



