Diptych with the Deposition from the Cross and the Dormition of the Virgin

With its well-preserved jewel-like pigmentation, this tiny ivory resembles contemporary manuscript illuminations. Made in the form of a diptych (a painting or carving on two separate panels, usually hinged like a book), it is part of a small group of ivories made in Parisian workshops around 1400, others from which are in Berlin and in the church of San Lorenzo, Portovenere. The diptych has been mounted, probably in the nineteenth century, in a hinged silver locket, with each wing set under a square of convex glass.