Maria Immaculata, with Symbols of her Immaculate Conception

Entry

The central figure of this relief is the Virgin Mary, suspended in the air amidst various symbols of her Immaculate Conception as she receives her crown from God the Father. Mary’s symbols are visually connected via twisting banderoles that bear calligraphic Latin inscriptions highlighting every aspect of Christ’s conception in minuscule letters. The entire scene is set within a recessed, crosshatched panel framed by a thin cable-motif border.

This integral representation of Maria Immaculata is a relatively late addition to the repertoire of Christian iconography. Only with Pope Sixtus IV’s approbation of the dogma of Mary’s immaculation in 1476 and 1483 – thus ending the dispute between the ‘maculists’ and the ‘immaculists’, respectively represented by the Dominicans on one hand and the Franciscans and Carmelites on the other – could the devotion of the Virgin’s Immaculate Conception take hold and flourish. ¹ One of the first integral depictions of the Virgin surrounded by symbols of her purity was formulated in a metal cut by Jean d’Ypres (d. 1508) disseminated in various books of hours printed in Paris shortly after 1500. Known versions appear in books of hours printed by Antoine Verard (1503), Gilles Hardouyn, Thielman Kerver (1503, 1505) and Simon Vostre (1502, 1508, 1510). The same representation also served as the frontispiece in Josse Clichtove’s De Puritate Conceptionis (Paris 1513).² The image also appears as a miniature in a book of hours printed in Bruges shortly before 1450 and today preserved in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.³ Around 1500, this very same book of hours was held in the possession of Jean (‘Jehan’) de Ricaumez, Chevalier and Lord of Rillicourt (d. 28 July 1504), and his son, Christophe de Ricaumez. It was Christophe who added the Immaculata miniature to this book of hours – together with a calendar to be used in Bruges – as part of a devotional quire, perhaps made in Rouen.⁴ In Antwerp, the painter Adriaen Isenbrant adopted the same representation, albeit with several variations, for a large painted altarpiece, thus affirming the rapid dissemination of this new iconography to the north.⁵

The ivory-carver followed the graphic examples closely. Inscribed on God the Father’s banderole at the top of the Amsterdam ivory we find a widely known allusion to the Virgin from the Song of Songs, which serves as the scene’s visual ‘motto’: TOTA PULCHRA E[s]AMICA MEA ET M[a]CVLA [non] EST IN TE (Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee). The various floating symbols encircling the Virgin are accompanied by short texts, likewise chiefly verses taken from the Song of Songs that would later be assembled in the Litany of Loreto (c. 1576).⁶ The ordering of the symbols and texts in no way appears to specify a sequence to be followed by the user. This is likewise confirmed when comparing the ivory to a rhyming text on a tapestry in Reims Cathedral (c. 1530), where the very same symbols are cited in a sequence that bears no logical correspondence to the representation on the ivory.⁷ First and foremost, the various elements are ordered according to a cosmological system: sun, moon and stars in the sky at the top, and below this the more earthly elements, including the hortus conclusus and the civitas dei, which are actually situated on the ground. The carver of the ivory was also seeking to achieve a certain symmetry. The puteus aquarium and the fons hortorum have been placed directly across from each other, so too the cedar and olive tree. In doing so, however, he chose to leave out the band of clouds that frames the entire scene in the woodcuts. This was likely due to a lack of sufficient space, though clearly its inclusion would also have affected the image’s overall legibility. A second, less elaborate and somewhat smaller (102 x 73 mm) ivory in New York displays a number of deviations when comparing its inscriptions to those on the Amsterdam piece.⁸ A third example in the former Walter Sneyd collection is substantially larger (178 x 121 mm).⁹. Elkington made a reproduction of this example in ‘fictile ivory’ for the Arundel Society.¹⁰ Lastly, the same Immaculata representation is known from four other ivories, possibly carved in the Philippines or Goa, that date from the late sixteenth and seventeenth century.¹¹ These display a clear Hispanic/Filipino or even Chinese style, for instance, in the styling of the clouds on which the Virgin stands and the sinuous curving of the panels at the top.

Stylistically, the present relief falls under a group of ivories produced from the late fifteenth to the onset of the sixteenth century and currently described as originating from the Low Countries, northern France or Paris. Randall’s suggestion that this specific group comes from Utrecht appears to be premature and has no archival support.¹² While the precise location of this ivory production has not yet been established, the mutual stylistic coherence shared by these works points to a specific centre or region of origin. The earliest works display a high degree of uniformity in style and execution: figures are carved quite primitively, typically with pointed faces and sharp, angular poses, overly long hands and fingers, and long sickle-shaped drapery folds. Other characteristic aspects include the crosshatched backgrounds, the fairly flat carving of the scene and the significant attention devoted to the framing thereof, often consisting of excessively compressed gothic tripartite arches with rayonnant tracery. Some of these works already possess the thin cord-motif framing encountered on the Amsterdam ivory.¹³ When considering the relatively large number of surviving ivories carved in this style, one must assume the scale of production was substantial. In terms of variety, however, the selection was rather limited: in addition to profane courtship caskets, chess boards and combs, this included paxes, diptychs and small luxury Marian altarpieces, also destined for the export market.¹⁴

Succeeding generations of ivory-carvers active in the early sixteenth century that followed this first group adopted a number of the stylistic traits and motifs used by their predecessors. Crosshatching and cable-motif borders are very often found in their work. The images themselves, however, are more ambitious, more varied and more complex than those of the previous generation. The large quantities of surviving ivories from this group show that the level of production is certain to have remained unalterably high, with a major concentration on paxes. Artistically, the most important example of this ‘second generation’ of ivories is a large pax in the Rijksmuseum (BK-2003-6).¹⁵ In terms of style, the Immaculata ivory falls seamlessly in line with this group of Netherlandish ivories from the early decades of the sixteenth century. Here too we find, for example, the crosshatched background and the cable-motif border. The striking similarity to a small ivory panel depicting a series of sibyls holding text banderoles leaves no doubt that both ivories were made in the same workshop.¹⁶ Moreover, the floating Maria Immaculata is virtually a twin of the Virgin rising up to heaven at the very top of the large pax in the Rijksmuseum (fig. a).¹⁷ Another notable agreement between these two pieces is that in both cases the depicted scenes are derived from Parisian woodcuts of the same period: the large pax is a precise copy of a woodcut from a printed book of hours published by Antoine Verard in 1500 in Paris,¹⁸ while the model of the Immaculata ivory can be traced to a woodcut made in the same Parisian printing milieu.

The identity of the ivory’s earliest owners is unknown. Judging by the Latin inscriptions, we can presume they were literate and capable of reading, memorising, and internalising the texts and their meanings. The costly nature of the material itself further indicates owners of considerable wealth, possibly laymen from a city’s social elite or members of a monastic community. The chosen iconographic theme of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, as yet quite rare around the year 1500, suggests this treasure was specifically made for a woman, perhaps a nun or beguine. By the eighteenth century, however, the ivory was in the possession of a man whose name is known thanks to an inscription on the reverse: barthelemy PRINET 1758 (fig. b). With ivories, incised or inscribed annotations conveying the owner are quite rare.¹⁹ In this case, the name Barthelemy Prinet indicates a French provenance. Genealogical research shows a fairly definite geographic range for the family name Prinet in the eighteenth century.²⁰ Most citations are found primarily in northern France, specifically in the present-day departments of Picardy and Champagne-Ardennes, i.e. areas that either bordered or were part of the Southern Netherlands in the late Middle Ages. This implies that, in the year 1758, Barthelemy Prinet and his ivory can be traced to somewhere in northern France. At least four of the other ivories from the same group also bear the names of patrons or previous owners: Jehan Nicolle, Henry Lardenois, and Heer P. from Orthen in Brabant, and Mariën Theere, the name of the rhetorical chamber in Ghent.²¹ This suggests a somewhat larger range of distribution and production for these ivories that also includes the Southern Netherlands.

Frits Scholten, 2024