File:The ivory workers of the middle ages (1906) (14780122415).jpg

Identifier: ivoryworkersmidage00cust (find matches)
Title: The ivory workers of the middle ages
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Cust, Anna Maria Elizabeth
Subjects: Ivories
Publisher: London, G. Bell and sons
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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figure. There is a feel-ing of movement in all her being, which, with thebeautiful broken folds of the drapery has within itthe germ of that restlessness which, rapidly in-creasing, became a painful fault in later Gothicsculpture. The colouring is very delicate, thepupils of the eyes are dark ; the lips, which are justparting in a rather affected smile, are lightly touchedwith carmine, and a faint gilded border relievesthe edges of the garments. The little seated figureof the Virgin in the Bargello (Fig. 29), is moredirect and simple in design, and is probably of thelast years of the thirteenth century. The curve in many of these figures has been putdown to the shape of the tusk ; this is no doubtthe case in many examples, but the peculiar twistis first found in some of the stone figures of theSainte Chapelle, where it seems to have beenintroduced as a contrast to the perpendicular shaftsof the architecture, and the constant employmentof this peculiar twist in the tiny figures of the
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ALTXARI PHOTO.) (bARGELLO, FLORENXE 29. THE MADONNA AND CHILDThirteenth century IVORY WORKERS ivory reliefs and in stone carving, proves it to bemore a question of taste than necessity. In the Paris Exposition of 1900 two lovely ivoryfigures were placed together and formed a groupof the Annunciation. They belong to differentprivate collections/ and have been beautifullyillustrated in the splendid series of photogravuresof the treasures in the Exposition retrospective deIArtfranfais. Whether they are by the hand ofthe same craftsman seems a matter of doubt, asthe technique of the drapery varies somewhat; butnothing can equal the exquisite softness of theVirgins robes and the dignified pose, worthy ofthe best work of the thirteenth century. The ideal and pathetic group of The Descentf7^om the Cross now in the Louvre (Fig. 30). Itis strangely reminiscent in design, recalling theByzantine rendering of the same subject in aneleventh century ivory, late in the Bonaffe Col-lection, in which

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