Pax with the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan

Entry

Depicted on this ivory pax or kustafel (kissing tablet) is a scene of John the Baptist baptising Christ in the River Jordan, set beneath a gothic arcade with a crosshatched background. Appearing between the two figures’ legs is a small escutcheon bearing a device that contains two hanging wisps of wheat and four small crosses, to be identified as the coat of arms of the Baldovini Del Pannocchia family in Florence.² The pax is carved from one segment of an elephant’s tusk.

In the late Middle Ages, the custom of exchanging kisses of peace among those attending Mass gave rise to the creation of the so-called osculatorium or pax, a new liturgical instrument.³ A pax – in Middle-Netherlandish commonly referred to as a paes, paesbert or paessteen – was a small plate or disc with a handle that circulated among the clergy and worshippers as an object to be kissed.⁴ In the fifteenth century, it became customary practice for the celebrating priest, prior to Communion, to kiss the pax and then pass it on to his spiritual brothers gathered around the altar.⁵ The church congregation would then be given its turn, though this was nowhere stipulated.⁶ In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, paxes are often cited in the written sources, thus confirming these objects belonged to the common good, and executed in a wide variety of materials, e.g. gilt-silver, wood, ivory, mother-of-pearl, glass and pipeclay. The possession of such objects was by no means limited to the clergy, as laymen were also allowed to have their own paxes.⁷ In the sixteenth century, however, the pax gradually fell into disuse in the Low Countries, in part with the coming of the Reformation.⁸

Stylistically, the present pax is closely linked to a group of ivories produced in the Low Countries or Northern France from around 1500 and into the early decades of the sixteenth century. As early as the fifteenth century, workshops emerged in Flanders that were specialized in the making of stereotypical ivory courtship caskets and small Marian altarpieces, largely intended for the export market. This Flemish ‘assortment’ also included paxes and small diptychs bearing depictions of saints.⁹ Within this fifteenth-century production in the north, Koch and Randall were the first to differentiate a number of ivories sharing the same distinct technique and style, which they attributed to one or more workshops active in the Northern Netherlands in the third quarter of the fifteenth century, possibly traceable to the city of Utrecht.¹⁰ The group encompasses small diptychs (or fragments thereof), paxes and a freestanding statuette of the Virgin and Christ. The ivories belonging to this potentially Netherlandish production are characterized by a marked emphasis on the framing of the scene – often with excessively compressed gothic, tripartite arches and rayonnant tracery – the crosshatched backgrounds and the fairly flat relief of the scene itself.¹¹ With the inclusion of newly added pieces, the same group eventually expanded, therefore calling for a more detailed classification.¹²

A number of the characteristics found in fifteenth-century Netherlandish ivory-carving also occur in a group of ivories that display a substantially higher level of artistic craftsmanship, with greater variations in form, theme and ornamentation. This more opulent production likely arose one generation later in response to a growing market for objects of private devotion among the wealthy living in the cities and members of the clerical class. The relatively large number of surviving pieces, including the present ivory, underscores the considerable scale of this northern production.¹³ Paxes make up a significant portion of this luxury production. Noteworthy is the application of letters and inscriptions commonly encountered on this group of ivories. Many of the scenes are derived from illustrations and printed books of hours made in Paris in the late fifteenth century. In September 1485, Anthoine Vérard (active 1485-1513) was probably the first Parisian publisher to introduce a printed and illustrated book of hours on the market.¹⁴ Its publication sparked the production and distribution of prayer books on a scale never witnessed prior to this time, a development that would continue until circa 1530. Other Parisian printers, publishers and booksellers followed in Vérard’s footsteps, entering this new and lucrative market, such as the publisher Simon Vostre (active 1486-1518), the printer Philippe Pigouchet (active 1488-1518) and the printer/publisher Thielman Kerver (active 1497-1522). Together these men were responsible for the majority of the overall book production.¹⁵ This scene of the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan also likely finds its source in this booming publisher’s milieu, considering the evident stylistic and motif-related agreement with images appearing in Pigouchet’s and Kerver’s printed books of hours.¹⁶ Nonetheless, not a single woodcut or engraving has ever been discovered in any of the surviving books of hours that could possibly have served as a direct model for these Netherlandish ‘kissing tablets’.¹⁷

An added dimension of this specific pax is its direct translation into a sixteenth-century terracotta relief which has been preserved together with its original terracotta mould in the Rijksmuseum (BK-2010-9-1 and -2). Both objects were discovered during the excavation of the ground consisting of a waste deposit of an old pottery in Leiden.¹⁸ As it turns out, a negative imprint of the ivory pax – not the Rijksmuseum piece, but a virtually identical version in the British Museum also bearing the Baldovini coat of arms¹⁹ – was made in clay, with the escutcheon eliminated in order to anonymize the image. After drying and baking, this negative was used as a mould to serially produce inexpensive reliefs in terracotta – and perhaps even paxes – for a clientele less financially well-endowed than the Baldovini family. The connection between the two ivory paxes and the two terracotta pieces unearthed in Leiden serves not only as a vivid illustration of how luxury ‘high culture’ objects were transformed into artworks for the ‘commoner’, but also provides a further verification of the ivories’ Netherlandish origin.

Frits Scholten, 2024