Martyrdom of Thomas Becket

This openwork ivory panel represents the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, at the hands of a group of English knights working for Henry II of England. The action takes place within a fantastical architectural frame representing Canterbury Cathedral. The martyred saint kneels before an altar laden with eucharistic vessels, his arms crossed over his chest in a gesture of prayer as his armored attackers descend upon him. A man stands behind the altar and clutches his hands in grief while in an upper register two female figures carry the naked soul of the martyred saint to Heaven and God descends from a nimbus to bless the scene. The whole panel has been carved through into a delicate lattice that, when first made, may have sat over a ground of painted and colored parchment. The pin holes on the rims suggest that the panel was affixed to a larger object, perhaps a small box or reliquary. The panel has suffered losses to the gable roof at the upper left, the pinnacles at the back of the altar, and the cusps in the central niche. Small cracks and warping have also misaligned some of the elements.

Compositional and technical similarities suggest that the current panel was made in the same workshop as a fragment of a box in the collection (acc. no. 17.190.194). The architectural frames of both panels demonstrate the same emphasis on attenuated architectural forms and minutely detailed brick and tile elements. The gable on the upper left of the current panel also resembles those surmounting the four standing figures on the box fragment. Comparison may be made between the architectural frames and the plate armor of the knights and similar features on a pair of ivory panels in the collection (acc. nos. 17.190.265 and 17.190.266), carvings in a private collection, the Bargello Museum in Florence (inv. no. 118, 119), and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (inv. nos. 284, 284a and 284b-1867). Additionally, the pinholes on the sides of the current panel link it to the other ivories in this group, which all share an unscored back and small holes on their rims. This suggests the workshop in question consistently affixed its carvings to larger objects by means of nails and dowels instead of gluing them to a backing.

While stylistic and technical features make this a part of a recognizable body of ivory carvings dating to the late fourteenth century, controversy surrounds the location of their production. Like many Gothic ivories, their recorded provenance begins only in the nineteenth century, when they were scattered among collections as far afield as Paris, Florence, and Bavaria. Carvings in the group have been variously attributed to Paris, the Netherlands, and northern Italy. Margaret Longhurst suggested an English provenance for objects in the group, an intriguing suggestion given the English saint venerated in the current panel (Longhurst 1926, 55). Thomas Becket became a national saint in England after his assassination at the hands of Henry II’s henchmen in 1170, the grisly end to a feud over church privileges within the kingdom. The archbishop developed an international reputation as a holy figure within a few years of his death. So widespread was the popularity of the saint that numerous caskets representing his martyrdom were made as far off as Limoges, France, so that even the depiction of a saint so associated with England as Thomas Becket cannot firmly affix its making in England or any other documented center for ivory carving in late medieval Europe.

While the representation of the Martyrdom of Thomas Becket provides only circumstantial evidence for an English origin, recent research has suggested that the panel can indeed be traced stylistically to England. In a 2014 article, Charles Little called attention to the armor worn by the soldiers – a quilted garment called a gambeson, a shirt of mail, and a coat of pleats, with helms composed of a visor with a combined bascinet. He notes that this type of armor is typically found in English representations of knights in the years between 1325 and 1340, but is rare in continental Europe (Little, 2014, pp. 24-25).




Further Reading:

Margaret Longhurst, English Ivories (London: G. P. Putnam's Sons Ltd, 1926).

Jaap Leeuwenberg, "Early nineteenth-century Gothic Ivoires," Aachener Künstblatter XXXIX (1969), pp. 111-48.

Charles T. Little, "The Art of Gothic Ivories: Studies at the Crossroads," Sculpture Journal 23 (2014), 13-29.

Paul Williamson and Glyn Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200-1550, Part I (London: Victoria and Albert Museum Publishing, 2014), pp. 496-99.

Paul Williamson, The Wyvern Collection (London: Thames and Hudson, 2019).




Catalogue Entry by Scott Miller, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022

Ernst and Marthe Kofler-Truniger, Lucerne (from at least 1964–sold 1970)

Kunsthaus Zürich. "Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, Zürich," June 7–August 2, 1964.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Patterns of Collecting: Selected Acquisitions, 1965–1975," December 6, 1975–March 23, 1976.

Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern: Ausstellung. Zurich: Kunsthaus Zürich, 1964. no. 778, p. 85, pl. 72.

Lasko, Peter. "A Notable Private Collection." Apollo 79, no. 28 (June 1964). p. 473, fig. 23, ill. p. 472.

Schnitzler, Hermann, Peter Bloch, and W. F. Volbach. Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern: Skulpturen – Elfenbein, Perlmutter, Stein, Holz; europäisches Mittelalter. Vol. 1. Lucerne: Verlag Räber & Cie, 1964. no. 117, pp. 32–33.

Leeuwenberg, Jaap. "Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories." Aachener Kunstblätter 39 (1969). p. 142.

"Departmental Accessions ." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 101 (July 1, 1970–June 30, 1971). p. 21.

Raggio, Olga, ed. "Medieval Art and the Cloisters." Notable Acquisitions (Metropolitan Museum of Art) no. 1965/1975 (1975). p. 155.

Raggio, Olga, ed. Patterns of Collecting: Selected Acquisitions, 1965-1975; Explanatory Texts. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975. p. 17.

Little, Charles T. "The Art of Gothic Ivories: Studies at the Crossroads." The Sculpture Journal 31, no. 1 (2014). p. 25, fig. 13.

Warren, Jeremy. Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum: Volume 2, Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2014. pp. 594–95, fig. 223.