Diptych with Scenes from the Crucifixion, Deposition, Flagellation and Entombment

This diptych in relief, for private devotions, is one of many produced in Paris workshops from the fourteenth century onwards, the result of the collaboration of the sculptor with the painter and silversmith.
Frames ornamented with rosettes separate the various registers that still retain traces of the original polychrome. The scenes represented are of the Passion of Christ, beginning from the lower left with the Flagellation and Christ on the way to Calvary. The narration continues, in the upper left register with the Crucifixion scene and goes on, in the upper right register with the Descent from the Cross and, finally, in the lower right register, is the Entombment.
Diptychs and triptychs in ivory served the church as a means of preaching the Gospel at a time when books and reading were the privilege of a small minority. Besides being very easy to carry they had great teaching value for the scenes from the Old and New Testaments were recounted through the pictorial language and easily memorised.