Images: Victoria & Albert Museum
Clavis number: ECMA 148
Other descriptors: none
Location: Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Formerly in the Abbey of Werden, Westphalia, Germany. Purchased by the museum in 1866.
Accession number: 149-1866
Category: ivories; reliquaries
Related literature: Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Protevangelium of James
Featured characters and locations: Elizabeth, Jesus Christ, Joseph (of Nazareth), Mary (Virgin).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: ivory
Size: 4.5 × 15.5 cm; depth 0.7 cm; weight 0.1 kg
Image: this is one of several panels from a casket (known as the Werden Casket), depicting canonical and noncanonical scenes related to the Life of Christ. This panel features, from left to right, the annunciation to Mary at a spring, the annunciation to Joseph, the visitation to Elizabeth, and the bitter water test. The panel is framed with a narrow border of leaf ornament and on the top side is a running band of egg-and-dart decoration.
Date: ca. 800 CE
Provenance: maker is unknown; probably made in the Lower Rhine (Werden).
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The annunciation of the Virgin is connected with the Protevangelium of James due to setting at a spring:
And she took the water pitcher and went out and filled it with water. And behold, there was a voice saying, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. You are blessed among women.” And Mary looked all around her, to the right and left, to see from where the voice was coming. And she began trembling and went into her house and put the water pitcher down. And taking up the purple (thread) she sat down on her chair and began to spin the purple (thread). (11:1–4; trans. Lily Vuong, The Protevangelium of James [Early Christian Apocrypha 7; Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019]).
The water trial also derives from the Protevangelium of James:
And the high priest said, “Give back the virgin you received from the temple of the Lord.” And Joseph burst into tears. And the high priest said, “I will have you drink the Lord’s water of conviction,’ and it will reveal your sin before your own eyes.” And the high priest took (the water) and made Joseph drink it and sent him away to the wilderness, but he came back whole. And then he made the child (Mary) drink it and also sent her away into the wilderness, but she too came back whole. And all the people were amazed because their sin was not revealed. And the high priest said, “If the Lord God did not reveal your sin, then neither do I condemn you.” And he let them go. And Joseph took Mary and returned home, rejoicing and praising the God of Israel (Prot. Jas. 16; trans. Vuong; see also Ps.-Mt. 12).
The presence of the Virgin beside the angel in the annunciation to Joseph is a detail not found elsewhere in Christian art or literature.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baldwin-Smith, Earl. Early Christian Iconography and a School of Ivory Carvers in Provence. New Haven: Princeton University Press (p. 221).
Beckwith, John. “The Werden Casket Reconsidered.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 40.1 (1958): 1–11 (includes early bibliography).
Dalton, Ormonde Maddock. Byzantine Art and Archaeology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911 (p. 202).
__________. Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era with Examples of Mohammedan Art and Carvings in Bone in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum. London: British Museum, 1909 (p. 6).
Lafontaine-Dosogne, J. Iconographie de la Vierge dans l’empire Byzantin et en Occident. Bruxelles: Académie royale de Belgique, 1992 (vol. 1, p. 36).
Longhurst, Margaret H. Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory. 2 vols. London: Published under the authority of the Board of Education, 1927–1929 (vol. 1, pp. 31–32).
Milburn, Robert. Early Christian Art and Architecture. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993 (p. 244–47).
Ribbert, Margret. Untersuchungen zu den Elfenbeinarbeiten der älteren Metzer Gruppe. Witterschlick/Bonn: Verlag M. Wehle, 1992 (pp. 43, 249)
Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz. Avori di scuola ravennate nel V e VI secolo. Ravenna: London, 1977 (pp. 16, 18, 23, 29, 30, 33).
__________. Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters. 1952. 3rd ed. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1976 (n. 118).
Williamson, Paul. Medieval Ivory Carvings. Early Christian to Romanesque. London: V&A Publishing, 2010 (pp. 156–158, no. 38).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Baptism with a River God on the Werden Casket from Milan.” Art in the Christian Tradition.
Entry created by Olivia De Viveiros, under the supervision of Tony Burke, York University, 3 April 2021.