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Devotional Diptych with the Nativity and the Adoration, ca. 1500
French (Paris)
Silver and niello, engraved and gilded copper-alloy frame; Overall 4 x 8 in. (10.2 x 20.3 cm)
The Cloisters Collection, 2000 (2000.152)
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Description
The unknown maker of these niello plaques depended for their composition on designs generated by the same workshop that provided the cartoons for the celebrated Unicorn Tapestries now at The Cloisters. This workshop flourished for several generations under royal patronage; the leading master of the second generation (ca. 1485–1510) is known as the Master of the Hunt of the Unicorn, identifying his most prominent achievement.
In addition to tapestries, this master designed illuminated manuscripts and illustrations for printed books, the most famous of which are those in a book of hours
printed in Paris by Philippe Pigouchet for the publisher Simon Vostre in 1496. The scenes on the Metropolitan's plaques correspond very closely to metal-plate illustrations in the Pigouchet book of hours. A distinctive and immediately recognizable style and a vocabulary of facial types, stances, gestures, architectural elements, and other motifs that were employed by the workshop over an extended period of time forthrightly link the diptych with the Unicorn Tapestries—thus furthering our understanding of the origins of those masterpieces, as well as of the praxis of a major medieval workshop.
(Entry written by Timothy B. Husband)
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