Colour and rich decoration were seen very much on the sculpture of the Middle Ages, for we find traces of it in the mediæval tombs, effigies, and all kinds of statuary.
Some of the ancient diptychs had both ground and figures coloured and perhaps gilt. Coloured and gilded statues and reliefs were common in Germany and France, and are so to-day in those of the Roman and Greek Christian churches.
Fig. 113.—Leaf of a Roman Diptych. (S.K.M.)
The dresses of the figures are semé (sown) all over with fleurs-de-lis and very rich diapers in gold and silver, on rich red, blue, and white grounds. Statuary painting was a profession in the Middle Ages. The illustration (Fig. 112), from a French fifteenth-century manuscript, shows an image painter at work.
Returning to the ivory plaques or diptychs, the illustration at Fig. 113 is that of the most perfect and most beautiful specimen of antique ivory carving that we have any knowledge of. It is now in the Kensington Museum, and represents the figure of a young girl, or Bacchante, with a younger girl attending her. The figure has a well-designed arrangement of drapery hanging in graceful folds. She stands at an altar, and is in the act of making an offering. A vigorously carved oak-tree with acorns and foliage occupies the left top of the panel, and a border of a Greek character surrounds it. The corresponding half of this plaque is in the Cluny Museum in Paris. It was found at the bottom of a well at Montier-en-Der, and is much injured. The latter half shows the figure of a female standing at an altar, and holding in her hands inverted flaming torches. These famous plaques, which measure nearly 12 inches by 5, are supposed to have formed the doors of a large shrine or châsse that was brought from Rome in the days of Childeric. They are supposed to be Roman work of the sixth or seventh century, though some think the work is earlier: they are undoubtedly executed by a Greek artist. There are many specimens of consular diptychs in the museums of London, Liverpool, and the Continent. The earliest dates from about A.D. 250, and the latest about A.D. 540. The Roman Consuls continued for nearly one thousand years: the last Consul of Constantinople was Basilius (A.D. 541), and the last Consul of Rome was Paulinus (A.D. 536).
There is a large plaque of ivory in the British Museum which measures 16 inches by nearly 6 inches in width—the largest known—on which is carved the figure of an archangel holding in one hand a globe and in the other a long staff. He stands on the top of a flight of steps under a round arch supported by Corinthian pillars. Its date is uncertain, but is probably of the seventh century; it is grandly designed and of excellent workmanship (Fig. 114).
A work of the same or slightly earlier period is the beautiful ivory vase (Fig. 115), which has well proportioned horizontal divisions and well-designed ornamentation. The style of design suggests a copy from metal work.
Triptychs, as we have seen, were used above and behind the altar tables, and were at first portable, so that they could be carried away after the service was ended; but later they became the “retables,” fixed altars, or “reredoses,” and were carved or painted, or were partly executed in both ways.
