Many artificial compounds have, from time to time, been tried as substitutes for ivory; amongst them potatoes treated with sulphuric acid. Celluloid is familiar to us nowadays. In the form of bonzoline, into which it is said to enter, it is used largely for billiard balls; and a new French substitute—a caseine made from milk, called gallalith—has begun to be much used for piano keys in the cheaper sorts of instrument. Odontolite is mammoth ivory, which through lapse of time and from surroundings becomes converted into a substance known as fossil or blue ivory, and is used occasionally in jewelry as turquoise, which it very much resembles. It results from the tusks of antediluvian mammoths buried in the earth for thousands of years, during which time under certain conditions the ivory becomes slowly penetrated with the metallic salts which give it the peculiar vivid blue colour of turquoise.
Ivory Sculpture and the Decorative Arts.—The use of ivory as a material peculiarly adapted for sculpture and decoration has been universal in the history of civilization. The earliest examples which have come down to us take us back to prehistoric times, when, so far as our knowledge goes, civilization as we understand it had attained no higher degree than that of the dwellers in caves, or of the most primitive races. Throughout succeeding ages there is continued evidence that no other substance—except perhaps wood, of which we have even fewer ancient examples—has been so consistently connected with man’s art-craftsmanship. It is hardly too much to say that to follow properly the history of ivory sculpture involves the study of the whole world’s art in all ages. It will take us back to the most remote antiquity, for we have examples of the earliest dynasties of Egypt and Assyria. Nor is there entire default when we come to the periods of the highest civilization of Greece and Rome. It has held an honoured place in all ages for the adornment of the palaces of the great, not only in sculpture proper but in the rich inlay of panelling, of furniture, chariots and other costly articles. The Bible teems with references to its beauty and value. And when, in the days of Pheidias, Greek sculpture had reached the highest perfection, we learn from ancient writers that colossal statues were constructed—notably the “Zeus of Olympia” and the “Athena of the Parthenon.” The faces, hands and other exposed portions of these figures were of ivory, and the question, therefore, of the method of production of such extremely large slabs as perhaps were used has been often debated. A similar difficulty arises with regard to other pieces of considerable size, found, for example, amongst consular diptychs. It has been conjectured that some means of softening and moulding ivory was known to the ancients, but as a matter of fact though it may be softened it cannot be again restored to its original condition. If up to the 4th century we are unable to point to a large number of examples of sculpture in ivory, from that date onwards the chain is unbroken, and during the five or six hundred years of unrest and strife from the decline of the Roman empire in the 5th century to the dawn of the Gothic revival of art in the 11th or 12th, ivory sculpture alone of the sculptural arts carries on the preservation of types and traditions of classic times in central Europe. Most important indeed is the rôle which existing examples of ivory carving play in the history of the last two centuries of the consulates of the Western and Eastern empires. Though the evidences of decadence in art may be marked, the close of that period brings us down to the end of the reign of Justinian (527-563). Two centuries later the iconoclastic persecutions in the Eastern empire drive westward and compel to settle there numerous colonies of monks and artificers. Throughout the Carlovingian period, the examples of ivory sculpture which we possess in not inconsiderable quantity are of extreme importance in the history of the early development of Byzantine art in Europe. And when the Western world of art arose from its torpor, freed itself from Byzantine shackles and traditions, and began to think for itself, it is to the sculptures in ivory of the Gothic art of the 13th and 14th centuries that we turn with admiration of their exquisite beauty of expression. Up to about the 14th century the influence of the church was everywhere predominant in all matters relating to art. In ivories, as in mosaics, enamels or miniature painting it would be difficult to find a dozen examples, from the age of Constantine onwards, other than sacred ones or of sacred symbolism. But as the period of the Renaissance approached, the influence of romantic literature began to assert itself, and a feeling and style similar to those which are characteristic of the charming series of religious art in ivory, so touchingly conceived and executed, meet us in many objects in ivory destined for ordinary domestic uses and ornament. Mirror cases, caskets for jewelry or toilet purposes, combs, the decoration of arms, or of saddlery or of weapons of the chase, are carved and chased with scenes of real life or illustrations of the romances, which bring home to us in a vivid manner details of the manners and customs, amusements, dresses and domestic life of the times. With the Renaissance and a return to classical ideas, joined with a love of display and of gorgeous magnificence, art in ivory takes a secondary place. There is a want of simplicity and of originality. It is the period of the commencement of decadence. Then comes the period nicknamed rococo, which persisted so long. Ivory carving follows the vulgar fashion, is content with copying or adapting, and until the revival in our own times is, except in rare instances, no longer to be classed as a fine art. It becomes a trade and is in the hands of the mechanic of the workshop. In this necessarily brief and condensed sketch we have been concerned mainly with ivory carving in Europe. It will be necessary to give also, presently, some indications enabling the inquirer to follow the history—or at least to put him on the track of it—not only in the different countries of the West but also in India, China and Japan.
Prehistoric Ivory Carvings.—These are the result of investigations made about the middle of the 19th century in the cave dwellings of the Dordogne in France and also of the lake dwellings of Switzerland. As records they are unique in the history of art. Further than this our wonderment is excited at finding these engravings or sculptures in the round, these chiselled examples of the art of the uncultivated savage, conceived and executed with a feeling of delicacy and restraint which the most modern artist might envy. Who they were who executed them must be left to the palaeontologist and geologist to decide. We can only be certain that they were contemporary with the period when the mammoth and the reindeer still roved freely in southern France. The most important examples are the sketch of the mammoth (see [Painting], Plate I.), on a slab of ivory now in the museum of the Jardin des Plantes, the head and shoulders of an ibex carved in the round on a piece of reindeer horn, and the figure of a woman (instances of representations of the human form are most rare) naked and wearing a necklace and bracelet. Many of the originals are in the museum at St Germain-en-Laye, and casts of a considerable number are in the British Museum.
| Fig. 3.—Panel with Cartouche, Nineveh. |
Ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman Ivories.—We know from ancient writers that the Egyptians were skilled in ivory carving and that they procured ivory in large quantities from Ethiopia. The Louvre possesses examples of a kind of flat castanets or clappers, in the form of the curve of the tusks themselves, engraved in outline, beautifully modelled hands forming the tapering points; and large quantities of small objects, including a box of plain form and simple decoration identified from the inscribed praenomen as the fifth dynasty, about 4000 B.C. The British Museum and the museum at Cairo are also comparatively rich. But no other collection in the world contains such an interesting collection of ancient Assyrian ivories as that in the British Museum. Those exhibited number some fifty important pieces, and many other fragments are, on account of their fragility or state of decay, stowed away. The collection is the result of the excavations by Layard about 1840 on the supposed site of Nineveh opposite the modern city of Mosul. When found they were so decomposed from the lapse of time as scarcely to bear touching or the contact of the external air. Layard hit upon the ingenious plan of boiling in a solution of gelatine and thus restoring to them the animal matter which had dried up in the course of centuries. Later, the explorations of Flinders Petrie and others at Abydos brought to light a considerable number of sculptured fragments which may be even two thousand years older than those of Nineveh. They have been exhibited in London and since distributed amongst various museums at home and abroad.
| From photo by W. A. Mansell & Co. |
| Fig. 4.—Leaf of diptych showing combats with stags; in the Liverpool Museum. |
Consular and Official and Private Diptychs.—About fifty of the remarkable plaques called “consular diptychs,” of the time of the three last centuries of the consulates of the Roman and Greek empire have been preserved. They range in date from perhaps mid-fourth to mid-sixth centuries, and as with two or three exceptions the dates are certain it would be difficult to overestimate their historic or intrinsic value. The earliest of absolutely certain date is the diptych of Aosta (A.D. 408), the first after the recognition of Christianity; or, if the Monza diptych represents, as some think, the Consul Stilicon, then we may refer back six years earlier. At any rate the edict of Theodosius in A.D. 384, concerning the restriction of the use of ivory to the diptychs of the regular consuls, is evidence that the custom must have been long established. According to some authorities the beautiful leaf of diptych in the Liverpool Museum (fig. 4) is a consular one and to be ascribed to Marcus Julius Philippus (A.D. 248). Similarly the Gherardesca leaf in the British Museum may be accepted as of the Consul Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 308). But the whole question of the half dozen earliest examples is conjectural. With a few notable exceptions they show decadence in art. Amongst the finest may be cited the leaf with the combats with stags at Liverpool, the diptych of Probianus at Berlin and the two leaves, one of Anastasius, the other of Orestes, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The literature concerning these diptychs is voluminous, from the time of the erudite treatise by Gori published in 1759 to the present day. The latest of certain date is that of Basilius, consul of the East in 541, the last of the consuls. The diptychs of private individuals or of officials number about sixteen, and in the case of the private ones have a far greater artistic value. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses the most beautiful leaf of perhaps the finest example of ancient ivory sculpture which has come down to us, diptychon Meleretense, representing a Bacchante (fig. 5). The other half, which is much injured, is in the Cluny Museum. Other important pieces are the Aesculapius and Hygeia at Liverpool, the Hippolytus and Phaedra at Brescia, the Barberini in the Bargello and at Vienna and the Rufius Probianus at Berlin. Besides the diptychs ancient Greek and Roman ivories before the recognition of Christianity are comparatively small in number and are mostly in the great museums of the Vatican, Naples, the British Museum, the Louvre and the Cluny Museum. Amongst them are the statuette of Penthea, perhaps of the 3rd century (Cluny), a large head of a woman (museum of Vienna) and the Bellerophon (British Museum), nor must those of the Roman occupation in England and other countries be forgotten. Notable instances are the plaque and ivory mask found at Caerleon. Others are now in the Guildhall and British Museums, and most continental European museums have examples connected with their own history.
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| Fig. 5.—Leaf of Roman diptych,representing a Bacchante; in the Victoria and AlbertMuseum. | From photo by W. A. Mansell & Co. |
| Fig. 6.—Leaf of Diptych,representing Archangel; inthe British Museum. |
Early Christian and Early Byzantine Ivories.—The few examples we possess of Christian ivories previous to the time of Constantine are not of great importance from the point of view of the history of art. But after that date the ivories which we may ascribe to the centuries from the end of the 4th to at least the end of the 9th become of considerable interest, on account of their connexion with the development of Byzantine art in western Europe. With regard to exact origins and dates opinions are largely divergent. In great part they are due to the carrying on of traditions and styles by which the makers of the sarcophagi were inspired, and the difficulties of ascription are increased when in addition to the primitive elements the influence of Byzantine systems introduced many new ideas derived from many extraneous sources. The questions involved are of no small archaeological, iconographical and artistic importance, but it must be admitted that we are reduced to conjecture in many cases, and compelled to theorize. And it would seem to be impossible to be more precise as to dates than within a margin of sometimes three centuries. Then, again, we are met by the question how far these ivories are connected with Byzantine art; whether they were made in the West by immigrant Greeks, or indigenous works, or purely imported productions. Some German critics have endeavoured to construct a system of schools, and to form definite groups, assigning them to Rome, Ravenna, Milan and Monza. Not only so, but they claim to be precise in dating even to a certain decade of a century. But it is certainly more than doubtful whether there is sufficient evidence on which to found such assumptions. It is at least probable that a considerable number of the ivories whose dates are given by such a number of critics so wide a range as from the 4th to the 10th century are nothing more than the work of the monks of the numerous monasteries founded throughout the Carlovingian empire, copying and adapting from whatever came into their hands. Many of them were Greek immigrants exiled at the time of the iconoclastic persecutions. To these must be added the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, who brought with them and disseminated their own national feeling and technique. We have to take into account also the relations which existed not only with Constantinople but also with the great governing provinces of Syria and Egypt. Where all our information is so vague, and in the face of so much conflicting opinion amongst authorities, it is not unreasonable to hold with regard to very many of these ivories that instead of assigning them to the age of Justinian or even the preceding century we ought rather to postpone their dating from one to perhaps three centuries later and to admit that we cannot be precise even within these limits. It would be impossible to follow here the whole of the arguments relating to this most important period of the development of ivory sculpture or to mention a tithe of the examples which illustrate it. Amongst the most striking the earliest is the very celebrated leaf of a diptych in the British Museum representing an archangel (fig. 6). It is generally admitted that we have no ivory of the 5th or 6th centuries or in fact of any early medieval period which can compare with it in excellence of design and workmanship. There is no record (it is believed) from whence the museum obtained the ivory. There are at least plausible grounds for surmising that it is identical with the “Angelus longus eburneus” of a book-cover among the books brought to England by St Augustine which is mentioned in a list of things belonging to Christchurch, Canterbury (see Dart, App. p. xviii.). The dating of the four Passion plaques, also in the British Museum, varies from the 5th to the 7th century. But although most recent authorities accept the earlier date, the present writer holds strongly that they are not anterior to, at earliest, the 7th century. Even then they will remain, with the exception of the Monza oil flask and perhaps the St Sabina doors, the earliest known representation of the crucifixion. The ivory vase, with cover, in the British Museum, appears to possess defined elements of the farther East, due perhaps to the relations between Syria and Christian India or Ceylon. Other important early Christian ivories are the series of pyxes, the diptych in the treasury of St Ambrogio at Milan, the chair of Maximian at Ravenna (most important as a type piece), the panel with the “Ascension” in the Bavarian National Museum, the Brescia casket, the “Lorsch” bookcovers of the Vatican and Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bodleian and other bookcovers, the St Paul diptych in the Bargello at Florence and the “Annunciation” plaque in the Trivulzio collection. So far as unquestionably oriental specimens of Byzantine art are concerned they are few in number, but we have in the famous Harbaville triptych in the Louvre a super-excellent example.
| Fig. 7.—Mirror Case, illustrating the Storming of the Castle of Love; in the Victoria and Albert Museum. |