Crozier Head with Double Enthroned Christ

During the fourteenth century, ivory carvers usually exploited the double-sided visual field within the volutes of croziers, arranging complementary devotional images back to back on either side. This attentiveness to the specifications of the crozier as a flat, double-sided picture plane is an especially noticeable feature of Parisian ivory carving of the fourteenth century (compare acc. no. 17.190.164). The double image of Christ in Majesty that inhabits this beveled volute is highly unusual for the period and therefore suggests either the crozier’s production elsewhere in Western Europe, or its modern manufacture.

Positioned back-to-back with a shared halo and foliate throne, the two Christs are carved in the round and separated from one another by a mediating layer of ivory. The entire volute would have been carved from a single, thick piece of elephant ivory. On either side, Christ raises his right hand in blessing. While his left hand has been damaged on one side, on the other side Christ carries an orb symbolizing his dominion over Heaven and Earth. The faces differ slightly, with Christ on the damaged side sporting a slightly pointed beard and long, thick curls falling on the shoulder, and the opposite Christ distinguished by a rounder face, a short beard, and thinner waves falling behind the shoulders.

On the square base of the crozier head, female personifications of the four cardinal virtues stand with their attributes under an arcade of trefoil arches. Along with the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity), the Cardinal Virtues’ battles against the Vices—also known as the Seven Deadly Sins—were popular in medieval art and literature and reminded viewers of the triumph of Christian values over evil. Here, Justice effortlessly carries her scales and raises her right palm toward the viewer. Prudence gestures to her lamp. Temperance dilutes a flask of wine with water, and Fortitude grasps the jaws of a lion with both hands. All four personifications wear crowns and veils. While the Virtues are uncommon within the surviving corpus of ivory croziers, a late-twelfth century enamel example in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence is a notable exception (inv. no. 622 Carrand).

Leafy shoots with conical fruit emerge between the trefoil arches where the Virtues stand, and long fruiting vines ornament the volute and form the throne on which the double-sided Christ sits. Medieval croziers commonly feature highly stylized flora, which call to mind a variety of biblical references. In the Book of Numbers, the staff of Aaron blossomed and produced almonds, becoming an important symbol of the authority invested in medieval bishops. As the first high priest of the Israelites, Aaron modeled the ideal comportment and responsibilities of the highest clerical office within the Church.

The letters D and L, which are incised on a smooth, vertical area of the staff just above Prudence, may be elusive clues regarding the crozier’s otherwise unknown provenance. Long attributed to a fourteenth-century Italian, possibly Lombard, workshop, this crozier head has not been published since the early twentieth century. The crozier head is first recorded in the private collection of Frédéric Spitzer (1815–1890), a collector and dealer who regularly created pastiches and outright forgeries of medieval European art. Paint and extensive polychromy may have been applied to this crozier under Spitzer’s direction. It later entered the collection of Oscar Hainauer (1840–1894) along with a fake medieval ivory crozier head from Spitzer’s collection (acc. no. 11.182.3a–c). These pieces remained together through 1917, when they entered the Museum as part of the gift of works from J. Pierpont Morgan’s collection.


Catalogue Entry by Nicole D. Pulichene, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022

Inscription: Inscribed: (incised on vertical part of crozier) DL

Frédéric Spitzer (Austrian), Paris (sold 1893); his posthumous sale, Chevallier & Mannheim, Paris (April 17–June 16, 1893, no. 121); [ Jules Mannheim, Paris (in 1893, as agent for Hainauer (?))]; Oscar Hainauer, Berlin (until d. 1894); by descent to his widow, Julie Hainauer, Berlin (1894–sold 1906, to Duveen); [ Duveen Brothers, London, Paris and New York (sold July 1906, to Morgan)]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (1906–1913)

La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité, Moyen-Age, Renaissance. Vol. I. Mâcon: Imprimerie Protat Frères, 1890–1891. Ivoire 83, p. 54.

Spitzer, Frédéric, ed. La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité -- Moyen-Age -- Renaissance. Vol. 1. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1890–1893. Ivoire 86, p. 54, pl. IX.

Mély, F. de. "Bibliographie: La Collection Spitzer." Revue de l'art chrétien 40, no. 6 (September 1890). p. 425, (as cat. no. 35).

Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité: antiques, du moyen-âge & de la renaissance: composant l'importante et précieuse Collection Spitzer. Vol. 1. Paris: Chevallier and Mannheim, April 17–June 16, 1893. no. 121, p. 23, pl. III.

Bode, Wilhelm von. Die Sammlung Oscar Hainauer. Berlin, 1897. no. 133, p. 81.

Bode, Wilhelm von. The Collection of Oscar Hainauer. Reprint (with English trans.) ed. London: Chiswick Press, 1906. no. 133, p. 81.