From the Cathedral of Salerno, this plaque comes from a set of about fifty ivories depicting biblical scenes that may have decorated a large church furnishing.
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Title:Plaque with God Creating the Animals
Date:1084
Geography:Made in Amalfi
Culture:South Italian
Medium:Elephant ivory
Dimensions:Overall: 4 3/16 x 4 3/16 x 5/16 in. (10.7 x 10.6 x 0.8 cm)
Classification:Ivories-Elephant
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number:17.190.156
J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York
Palazzo Te. "Wiligelmo e Matilde: l'officina romanica," June 15, 1991–September 30, 1991.
Paderborn, Germany. Diözesanmuseum Paderborn. "Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt. Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur am Aufgang der Romanik," July 21, 2006–November 5, 2006.
Salerno, Italy. Museo Diocesano di San Matteo. "L'enigma degli avori medievali da Amalfi a Salerno," December 20, 2007–April 30, 2008.
Staibano, Luigi. Guida del duomo di Salerno: composta ad uso de' viaggiatori. Salerno: Stabilimento Tipografico Nazionale, 1871. p. 50.
Stevenson, Enrico. "Scoperta di un avorio spettante al paliotto di Salerno." Nuovo bullettino di archeologia cristiana 3 (1897). p. 50.
Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell'arte italiana: Volume 2, Dall'arte Barbarica alla Romanica. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1902. pp. 625, 640, fig. 465.
Bertaux, Emile. L'art dans l'Italie méridionale: Volume 1, De la fin de l'empire romain à la conquête de Charles d'Anjou. Paris: Fontemoing, 1904. p. 432, pl. XX.
Breck, Joseph. Catalogue of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance Sculpture. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1913. no. 1, pp. 3–4.
Breck, Joseph. "Pre-Gothic Ivories in the Pierpont Morgan Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., 15, no. 1 (January 1920). pp. 15–16.
Goldschmidt, Adolph. Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der romanischen Zeit, XI.-XIII. Jahrhundert. Vol. 4. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1926. no. 126, pp. 3, 36–39, pl. XLII, no. 6.
Longhurst, Margaret H. Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory. Vol. 1. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1927. p. 93.
Kessler, Herbert L. "An Eleventh Century Ivory Plaque from South Italy and the Cassinese Revival." Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 8 (1966). pp. 85–86, fig. 20.
Lasko, Peter. Ars Sacra, 800-1200. 1st ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972. p. 287 n. 6.
Bergman, Robert P. "A School of Romanesque Ivory Carving in Amalfi." Metropolitan Museum Journal 9 (1974). pp. 173–74, fig. 15.
Bergman, Robert P. The Salerno Ivories: Ars Sacra from Medieval Amalfi. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. no. 3b, pp. 1, 19, 122, fig. 4b.
Schrader, J. L. "A Medieval Bestiary." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 44, no. 1 (Summer 1986). p. 11.
Bliss, Garrett. "Griffins in Medieval Art: Survival and Adaptation." In Survival of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Medieval Art. Providence, R.I.: Brown University, 1987. p. 134.
Büchsel, Martin. "Die Schöpfungsmosaiken von San Marco: Die Ikonographie der Erschaffung des Menschen in der frühchristliche Kunst." Städel-Jahrbuch, n.s., 13 (1991). p. 39, fig. 15.
Quintavalle, Arturo Carlo, ed. Wiligelmo e Matilde: L'officina romanica. Mantova: Centro Internazionale d'Arte e di Cultura di Palazzo Te, 1991. no. 14c, pp. 364, 366.
Benton, Janetta Rebold. The Medieval Menagerie: Animals in the Art of the Middle Ages. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992. p. 14, fig. 4.
Braca, Antonio. Gli avori medievali del Museo diocesano di Salerno. Salerno: Pietro Laveglia Editore, 1994. pp. 11, 14, 41, fig. IIIb, ill. p. 27.
Lasko, Peter. Ars Sacra, 800-1200. 2nd ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994. p. 292 n. 6.
Stiegemann, Christoph, and Matthias Wemhoff, ed. Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt: Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur am Aufgang der Romanik. Volume 2: Catalogue. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2006. no. 380, pp. 274–275.
Bologna, Ferdinando, ed. L'enigma degli avori medievali da Amalfi a Salerno. Vol. 2. Pozzuoli: Paparo Edizioni, 2008. no. 14, pp. 272–75.
Bologna, Ferdinando. "Avori Medioevali da Amalfi a Salerno, senza enigmi." In L'enigma degli avori medievali da Amalfi a Salerno, edited by Ferdinando Bologna. Vol. 1. Pozzuoli: Paparo Edizioni, 2008. p. 62, (as no. 14).
Calì, Maria. "Sull'assetto originario degli avori di Salerno: storia delle testimonianze e delle supposizioni." In L'enigma degli avori medievali da Amalfi a Salerno, edited by Ferdinando Bologna. Vol. 1. Pozzuoli: Paparo Edizioni, 2008. pp. 136, 145, fig. 4, 7, (ill. as part of reconstructions).
De Mieri, Stephano. "Per una fortuna critica degli avori di Salerno." In L'enigma degli avori medievali da Amalfi a Salerno, edited by Ferdinando Bologna. Vol. 1. Pozzuoli: Paparo Edizioni, 2008. p. 104.
Milone, Antonio. "La morte di Anania: un avorio salernitano perduto." In The 'Amalfi'-'Salerno' Ivories and the Medieval Mediterranean: A Notebook from the Workshop Held in Amalfi, 10-13 December 2009, edited by Francesca Dell’Acqua. Quaderni del Centro di cultura e storia amalfitana, Vol. 5. Amalfi: Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana, 2011. pp. 35, 37.
Galán y Galindo, Ángel. "El marfil y el comercio medieval Mediterráneo." Arte, Arqueología e Historia 19 (2012). p. 142.
Müller, Kathrin. "Old and New: Divine Revelation in the Salerno Ivories." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 54, no. 1 (2010–2012). pp. 1, 2, fig. 3b.
Shalem, Avinoam. Die mittelalterlichen Olifante: Volume 1, Text. Die Elfenbeinskulpturen. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2014. pp. 72–73, fig. 68.
Dell’Acqua, Francesca, Anthony Cutler, Herbert L. Kessler, Avinoam Shalem, and Gerhard Wolf, ed. The Salerno Ivories: Objects, Histories, Contexts. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2016. pp. 254–55, pl. 3c–d.
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