This panel is one from a series of scenes of the lives of Adam and Eve that originally decorated a small box. On this panel Adam and Eve, identified with Greek inscriptions, harvest grain; on the other panel they work at a metal forge (see 17.190.139). Two intact caskets that show similar scenes of Adam and Eve's toil also display Ploutos, the personification of wealth-a reminder to the owner of the treasure stored in the casket that prosperity is a gift from God and that God favors those who repent of their sins.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Panel from an Ivory Casket with the Story of Adam and Eve
Date:10th or 11th century
Geography:Made in Constantinople
Culture:Byzantine
Medium:Ivory, gilt, polychromy
Dimensions:Overall: 2 5/8 x 3 11/16 x 3/16 in. (6.7 x 9.3 x 0.5 cm)
Classification:Ivories
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number:17.190.138
Inscription: Inscribed: (incised at upper left) ADAM / (top center) EVA.
Ferenc Pulszky, Pest (in 1896); Julius Heinrich Wilhelm Campe, Hamburg; [ Julius Böhler, Munich]; [ Georges B. Brauer, Paris (sold 1909)]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (until 1917)
Palazzo Te. "Wiligelmo e Matilde: l'officina romanica," June 15, 1991–September 30, 1991.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Glory of Byzantium," March 11–July 6, 1997.
Molinier, Emile. Les Ivoires. Histoire générale des arts appliqués à l'industrie, Vol. 1. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1896. p. 107, pl. IX bis, no. 2.
Graeven, Hans. "Adamo ed Eva sui cofanetti d'avorio Bizantini." L'Arte 2 (1899). p. 312.
Graeven, Hans. "Typen der Wiener Genesis auf byzantinischen Elfenbeinreliefs." Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 21 (1900). p. 107.
Schlumberger, Gustave Léon. L'Épopée byzantine à la fin du Xe siècle: Part 2, Basile II le tueur de Bulgares. Librairie Hachette et Cie, 1900. pp. 280–81.
Dalton, O. M. Byzantine Art and Archeology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911. pp. 220–21.
Nye, Phila Calder. "The Oblong Caskets of the Byzantine Period." American Journal of Archaeology 23, no. 4 (October–December 1919). pp. 404, 407, 409–10, 412, fig. 9.
Breck, Joseph. "Pre-Gothic Ivories in the Pierpont Morgan Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., 15, no. 1 (January 1920). p. 14.
Porter, Arthur Kingsley. Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads. Vol. 1. Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1923. p. 283.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1925. p. 47.
Milliken, William M. "A Byzantine Ivory Casket." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 12, no. 1 (January 1925). p. 7.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1929. p. 47.
Goldschmidt, Adolph, and Kurt Weitzmann. Die Byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIII. Jahrhunderts. Vol. 1. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1930. no. 92, pp. 13, 54, fig. 92, pl. LV.
Bergman, Robert P. The Salerno Ivories: Ars Sacra from Medieval Amalfi. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. p. 22.
Randall Jr., Richard H. Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery. Walters Art Gallery, 1985. pp. 116, 130.
Quintavalle, Arturo Carlo, ed. Wiligelmo e Matilde: L'officina romanica. Mantova: Centro Internazionale d'Arte e di Cultura di Palazzo Te, 1991. no. 10b, pp. 353–54.
Evans, Helen C., and William D. Wixom, ed. The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997. no. 158b, pp. 222, 234–36, 492.
Connor, Carolyn L. The Color of Ivory: Polychromy on Byzantine Ivories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. p. 84.
Eisenberg, Jerome M. "The New Byzantine Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Minerva 12, no. 3 (2001). pp. 26–27, fig. 15.
Evans, Helen C., Melanie Holcomb, and Robert Hallman. "The Arts of Byzantium." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 58, no. 4 (Spring 2001). p. 52.
Papanikola-Bakirtzi, Demetra, ed. Everyday Life in Byzantium. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Directorate of Byzantine and Post Byzantine Monuments, 2002. pp. 54, 245, fig. 5.
Kalavrezou, Ioli. Byzantine Women and their World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Art Museums, 2003. p. 148, ill.
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