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DOI Artikel:Cutler, Anthony: Mistaken novelty: problems of ivory carving in the Christian East (12th and 13th centuries) =
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.35032#0279
269
ANTHONY CUTLER
Pcnnyyivonio .S'tote University
Aft'.sfctActt Atvc/ty; Prtt/^/cnt.s qf't'twi- cctnVng
m t/tc CArtAftftn Ect.sf (72t/t ctttc/ 73tA cenfMrteU
r ] Ihe history of historiography, and not least the historiography of art, is littered with
instances where an observer, insufficiently familiar with the monuments in
question and far removed from them in time and space, has regarded cultures and
the objects they produced either as much more recent or much older than in actual fact they
were. Examples from the early-modern period would include Montaigne's assumption
that the civilisations of Peru and Mexico were relatively young when they were destroyed
by the Spaniards. ^ Inigo Jones, the 17th century architect, believed that Stonehenge was a
temple built by the Romans." Fifteen years ago, a noted (and now lamented) Byzantinist
proposed that the famous Veroli casket in London was composed of ivory plaques carved in
Late Antiquity; for my part, I corrected this misconception in an article entitled 'Mistaken
Antiquity'.^ The study that follows may be regarded as a complement to that paper of 1998.^
On the face of it, no era in Byzantine artistic production would seem more likely than the
12th century to have enjoyed sumptuous creations in ivory. Glittering and well-known
precious-metal reliquaries, polychrome enamels, and book illuminations describe a perva-
sive taste for visual and material splendour while, in the realm of the political, one would
expect worthy Komnenian successors to the series of Macedonian examples in ivory
worked to glorify Christ, the Mother of God, other saints and, not indirectly, the emperor
and the court that surrounded him.^ To be sure, a sizeable number of ivories have been as-
cribed to the 12th and 13th centuries, and even later, often on grounds no more substantial
' M. de Montaigne, Ucj TtvoA, ed. P. Viiiey (Paris, 2004), 909: "C'estoit un monde enfant".
* A.A. TAIT, "Inigo Jones's 'Stone-Heng'," TJnrA'ngton Magazine 120 (1978), pp. 155-158.
^ P. SPECK, "Die Rosettenkästschen. Originaiarbeiten oder Versuche einer Verwendung von vorhandenem Material?,"
TJyzontinAcAc ZeiUcAri/t 86-87 (1993-1994) 79-85; Anthony CUTLER, 'Mistaken Antiquity: Thoughts on Some Re-
cent Commentary on the Rosette Caskets' in AETOS: Studies in 7/ononr of Cyri/ Mongo presenter/ to Ain! on Aprii 74,
799S, ed. 1. SEVCENKO and 1. HUTTER. Stuttgart and Leipzig 1998, pp. 46-54.
^ An earlier version of the present paper was deiivered at the First International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Sym-
posium in Istanbu) in June 2007 and will be published in
English in the Acto of that meeting.
^ For a chronological survey of the datable works, see Anthony CUTLER, TAe 77onr7 of tAe Mover; CrqfVnonsAip,
7voty, ont/ Society (9tA-77tA Centuries), Princeton 1994, p. 197-219.
Thus, in a purely circular argument, the Apostles casket in the Bargello has been put in the 12th century on the basis of
a perceived analogy with the openwork Prodromos plaque in the Victoria and Albert Museum, itself mistakenly as-
signed to this century by analogy with the Bargello casket. See: D. GABORIT-CHOPIN, Avori tnetA'evoA', Florence
1988, 32, no. 5; P. Williamson, An fntroJocfion to MerAevoi 7vory Corvings, London, 1982, 28, pi. 10.
ANTHONY CUTLER
Pcnnyyivonio .S'tote University
Aft'.sfctActt Atvc/ty; Prtt/^/cnt.s qf't'twi- cctnVng
m t/tc CArtAftftn Ect.sf (72t/t ctttc/ 73tA cenfMrteU
r ] Ihe history of historiography, and not least the historiography of art, is littered with
instances where an observer, insufficiently familiar with the monuments in
question and far removed from them in time and space, has regarded cultures and
the objects they produced either as much more recent or much older than in actual fact they
were. Examples from the early-modern period would include Montaigne's assumption
that the civilisations of Peru and Mexico were relatively young when they were destroyed
by the Spaniards. ^ Inigo Jones, the 17th century architect, believed that Stonehenge was a
temple built by the Romans." Fifteen years ago, a noted (and now lamented) Byzantinist
proposed that the famous Veroli casket in London was composed of ivory plaques carved in
Late Antiquity; for my part, I corrected this misconception in an article entitled 'Mistaken
Antiquity'.^ The study that follows may be regarded as a complement to that paper of 1998.^
On the face of it, no era in Byzantine artistic production would seem more likely than the
12th century to have enjoyed sumptuous creations in ivory. Glittering and well-known
precious-metal reliquaries, polychrome enamels, and book illuminations describe a perva-
sive taste for visual and material splendour while, in the realm of the political, one would
expect worthy Komnenian successors to the series of Macedonian examples in ivory
worked to glorify Christ, the Mother of God, other saints and, not indirectly, the emperor
and the court that surrounded him.^ To be sure, a sizeable number of ivories have been as-
cribed to the 12th and 13th centuries, and even later, often on grounds no more substantial
' M. de Montaigne, Ucj TtvoA, ed. P. Viiiey (Paris, 2004), 909: "C'estoit un monde enfant".
* A.A. TAIT, "Inigo Jones's 'Stone-Heng'," TJnrA'ngton Magazine 120 (1978), pp. 155-158.
^ P. SPECK, "Die Rosettenkästschen. Originaiarbeiten oder Versuche einer Verwendung von vorhandenem Material?,"
TJyzontinAcAc ZeiUcAri/t 86-87 (1993-1994) 79-85; Anthony CUTLER, 'Mistaken Antiquity: Thoughts on Some Re-
cent Commentary on the Rosette Caskets' in AETOS: Studies in 7/ononr of Cyri/ Mongo presenter/ to Ain! on Aprii 74,
799S, ed. 1. SEVCENKO and 1. HUTTER. Stuttgart and Leipzig 1998, pp. 46-54.
^ An earlier version of the present paper was deiivered at the First International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Sym-
posium in Istanbu) in June 2007 and will be published in
English in the Acto of that meeting.
^ For a chronological survey of the datable works, see Anthony CUTLER, TAe 77onr7 of tAe Mover; CrqfVnonsAip,
7voty, ont/ Society (9tA-77tA Centuries), Princeton 1994, p. 197-219.
Thus, in a purely circular argument, the Apostles casket in the Bargello has been put in the 12th century on the basis of
a perceived analogy with the openwork Prodromos plaque in the Victoria and Albert Museum, itself mistakenly as-
signed to this century by analogy with the Bargello casket. See: D. GABORIT-CHOPIN, Avori tnetA'evoA', Florence
1988, 32, no. 5; P. Williamson, An fntroJocfion to MerAevoi 7vory Corvings, London, 1982, 28, pi. 10.