Carefully cut from a plaque of African elephant ivory, this statuette follows a widespread Byzantine image type called the Hodegetria, in which the Virgin supports the Christ Child with her left arm and gestures to him with her right hand. It derives its name from an icon housed in the Hodegon Monastery in Constantinople, and the image appears in media from Constantinople to Nubia and Ethiopia.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Icon with the Virgin and Child
Date:mid-10th–mid-11th century
Geography:Made in probably Constantinople
Culture:Byzantine
Medium:Elephant ivory
Dimensions:Overall: 9 3/16 x 2 3/4 x 1/2in. (23.4 x 7 x 1.3cm)
Classification:Ivories-Elephant
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number:17.190.103
Joseph Durighello, Paris; [ Raphael Stora, Paris and New York (before first World War)]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (until 1917)
Baltimore Museum of Art. "Early Christian and Byzantine art, an exhibition held at the Baltimore Museum of Art," April 25–June 22, 1947.
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "The Pierpont Morgan Treasures. Loan exhibition in honor of the Junius Spencer Morgan Memorial," November 10, 1960–December 18, 1960.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Glory of Byzantium," March 11–July 6, 1997.
Benaki Museum. "Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art," October 16, 2000–January 15, 2001.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Africa & Byzantium," November 13, 2023–March 3, 2024.
Breck, Joseph. "Pre-Gothic Ivories in the Pierpont Morgan Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., 15, no. 1 (January 1920). p. 15.
Milliken, William M. "A Byzantine Ivory in the Morgan Collection." Art in America 10, no. 5 (August 1922). pp. 197–202, ill. p. 199.
Porter, Arthur Kingsley. Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads. Vol. 1. Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1923. p. 272.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1925. p. 48.
Longhurst, Margaret H. Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory. Vol. 1. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1927. pp. 41–42.
Goldschmidt, Adolph, and Kurt Weitzmann. Die Byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIII. Jahrhunderts. Vol. 2. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1934. no. 48, pp. 14–17, 40, fig. 48, pl. XX.
Casson, Stanley. "A Byzantine Master." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 66, no. 385 (April 1935). p. 187, fig. C.
Forsyth, William H. Medieval Sculptures of the Virgin and Child: A Picture Book. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1939. fig. 1.
Peirce, Hayford, and Royall Tyler. "An Ivory of the Xth Century." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 2 (1941). pp. 14–15, 17, fig. 3–4.
Comstock, Helen. "Madonnas of Four Centuries." The Compleat Collector 4, no. 2 (December 1944). pp. 17, 19, fig. 4.
Miner, Dorothy, ed. Early Christian and Byzantine Art: An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 1947. no. 125, p. 44, pl. XXX.
Weitzmann, Kurt. "Byzantine Art and Scholarship in America." American Journal of Archaeology, 2nd series, 51, no. 4 (1947). p. 404.
Mayor, A. Hyatt. "The Gifts that Made the Museum." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 16, no. 3 (November 1957). ill. p. 90.
Borchgrave d'Altena, J. de. "Notes au sujet de diverses Madones conservées chez nous: la vierge byzantine de l'évêque de Liège." Revue belge d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art 25 (1956). p. 137.
Cunningham, C. C., ed. The Pierpont Morgan Treasures: Loan Exhibition in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Junius Spencer Morgan Memorial. Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1960. no. 10, p. 9, ill. inside cover.
Beckwith, John. "Mother of God Showing the Way: A Byzantine Ivory Statuette of the Theotokos Hodegetria." The Connoisseur 150 (1962). p. 3.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Guide to the Collections: Medieval Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1962. fig. 15.
Byzantine Art, a[n] European Art. Catalogue of the Ninth Exhibition of the Council of Europe. Athens: Zappeion Exhibition Hall, 1964. no. 65, pp. 164–67.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Byzantium." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 26, no. 5 (January 1968). no. 14, p. 203.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. New York: Dutton Publishing, 1970. no. 114, p. 150.
Beeson, Nora B., ed. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. no. 22, p. 215, fig. 22.
Grape, Wolfgang. "Zur Frage des byzantinischen Einflusses auf die karolingische Kunst." Das Münster 27 (1974). p. 10, fig. 13.
Randall Jr., Richard H. Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery. Walters Art Gallery, 1985. p. 124.
Shepard, Mary B. Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by Charles T. Little, and Timothy B. Husband. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. pp. 10, 48, pl. 40.
Durand, Jannic, ed. Byzance: L'Art Byzantin dans les Collections Publiques Françaises. Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1992. p. 239.
Cutler, Anthony. The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium (9th–11th centuries). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. pp. 32, 131, 262 n. 92, 264 n. 27, fig. 30, 244.
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. 58, pp. 114, 137–39.
Connor, Carolyn L. The Color of Ivory: Polychromy on Byzantine Ivories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. p. 84.
Vassilaki, Maria, ed. The Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art. Milan and Athens: Skira Editore, 2000. no. 58, pp. 396–397.
Williamson, Paul. Medieval Ivory Carvings: Early Christian to Romanesque. London: V & A Publications, 2010. p. 113.
Stein, Wendy A. How to Read Medieval Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. p. 102, fig. 22.
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