Early Medieval Art

The Genoels-Elderen Ivories were a favored object among my students last semester; a majority wrote about them for their writing assignment.

Unfortunately, the Musées Royaux de l’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels does not provide any images of these ivories online.   In fact, I have found no images online at all!  An article in Gesta, for those of you with the necessary library privileges, by Carol Neuman de Vegvar expressly on these ivories has images, of course.  Otherwise, The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture Ad 600-900 has nice images.

The first panel shows Christ Triumphant. Its inscription reads

UBI DNS AMBULAVIT SUPER ASPIDEM ET BASILICU ET CONCULABIT LEONE ET DRACONEM
WHERE THE LORD WALKED UPON THE ASP AND THE BASILISK AND TRAMPLED THE LION AND DRAGON

and clearly refers to Psalm 90, verse 13.  This image has many comparanda:  from the Archbisop’s Chapel in Ravenna, to the Ruthwell Cross and the Durham Cassiodorus. 

The second panel shows the Annunciation above the Visitation.  Their respective inscriptions read

UBI GABRIHEL VENIT AD MARIAM
WHERE GABRIEL COMES TO MARY

UBI MARIAM SALUTAVIT ELIZABETH
WHERE MARY SALUTES ELIZABETH

The captivating details in these ivories make them the ideal subject of a careful description (the secondary figures, likely Zacharias and Gabriel in the Visitation, the deliberate gestures, the curtains opened to reveal, the architecture, and so on).  The pairing of the Annunciation and the Visitation will become popular in the Carolingian period, but at this moment we may look back, again, to the Ruthwell Cross.  One may easily observe the subtle variations in the representation of these two moments from the Gospel of Luke and relate them to their diverging contexts and functions in order to make a compelling comparison.