Another is the famous diptych, long known as the Tablets of Sens, but now at Paris in the Imperial library and forming the covers of a thirteenth century manuscript, containing “The Office of fools,” or, rather, the Office of the feast of the circumcision. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries some childish and improper jests and plays were allowed in churches on the first day of the year. This “Office of fools” seems to have been a complete arrangement for the day; with mass, matins, and hours. The whole affair was something like (but without the reverential decorum) the festival of the boy-bishop, celebrated in more than one of our English cathedrals about the same period, and was probably a relic of the heathen Saturnalia.
These tablets, which are somewhat similar in style to the sarcophagi of the third century, are engraved by Labarte in his album. On one leaf is represented Bacchus in a car drawn by centaurs; on the other is Diana in a chariot drawn by two bulls. Both subjects are surrounded by mythological figures. They are engraved also in Lacroix, Arts of the middle ages, as an illustration of book-binding: and in the second volume of the Monumens antiques inédits, by Millin.
There is a diptych of perhaps the fifth century in the treasury of the cathedral of Monza; one leaf representing Calliope sounding the lyre, and the other some unknown philosopher. Mr. Oldfield, in his excellent catalogue with very valuable notes of the Arundel series of fictile ivories, supposes the muse to be some Roman lady in an ideal character. He objects to Gori’s suggestion that the other leaf represents a poet, taking the characteristics to be those certainly of a philosopher. Another is in the public library at Paris, the two leaves having six muses, each of them accompanied by an author. These last have been guessed at by M. de Witte, who places the diptych in the fourth century. Neither M. Pulszky nor professor Westwood is inclined to agree with these guesses, except that one may perhaps be Euripides grouped with Melpomene. The workmanship is rude and the figures carved in high relief. Again, another diptych at Vienna in the cabinet of antiquities, is attributed to the time of Justinian. One leaf has a figure representing Rome; the other, Constantinople.
The above are all named in the essay attached to the catalogue of the Fejérváry collection by M. Pulszky; and professor Westwood very rightly adds to them one leaf of a diptych in the possession of count Auguste de Bastard, the diptych of St. Gall, the mythological figure of Penthea in the museum of the hôtel Cluny, a perfect diptych in the cathedral of Novara, and another in the basilica of San Gaudenzio at the same place.
There is no example among all these which surpasses in beauty of execution or in the interest of the subject, two ivory tablets which were formerly the doors of a reliquary in the convent of Moutier in France, in the diocese of Troyes. When M. Pulszky wrote his essay both tablets were supposed to be lost; they had been described and engraved in the Thesaurus of Gori, from whose prints alone they were known. Happily both since have been recovered. The left tablet, discovered a few years ago at the bottom of a well, is in the hôtel Cluny, much injured, and the other is in the collection of the South Kensington museum. The South Kensington leaf is probably the most beautiful antique ivory in the world. (See etching.) Each leaf represents a Bacchante; on both they are standing, and the Bacchante on the leaf in the English collection is accompanied by an attendant. Clothed from the shoulders to the feet in a long tunic, she stands near an oak-tree before an altar, on which a fire is lighted, and she is in the act of dropping a grain of incense from a small box held in her left hand. The whole figure is extremely graceful and dignified, the expression of the face earnest and devotional, and the form of the figure rightly expressed beneath the drapery; the hands and feet also well and carefully carved. On the corresponding leaf, preserved at Paris, the Bacchante has no attendant. Her drapery falls negligently suspended from her left shoulder, leaving the right arm and breast exposed. Professor Becker in his “Gallus,” describing the Lycoris of Virgil’s tenth eclogue, says: “Her light tunica, without sleeves, had become displaced by her movements and slidden down over her arm, disclosing something more than the dazzling shoulder.” He adds in a note that “the wide opening for the neck, and the broad holes for the arms, caused the tunica on every occasion of the person’s stooping to slip down over the arm. Artists appear to have been particularly fond of this drapery.” Such an arrangement, or rather disarrangement, of drapery would equally happen when the tunic was fastened over the shoulder by a small fibula, as it is represented upon the right arm of the young attendant in the South Kensington leaf. The Paris Bacchante stands before an altar on which a fire burns, and holds in each hand a torch with the flaming end downwards, as if to extinguish them. Her hair is gracefully bound with a riband decorated with ivy leaves, and falls down her back. A pine tree, stiff in design, stands close behind the altar; not to be compared with the oak-tree on the other leaf.
IVORY CARVING. ONE LEAF OF THE DIPTYCHON MELERETENSE
H. 11 in. W. 4¾ in.
S. K. M. (No 212’6.5) W. WISE FECIT
This admirable diptych was, perhaps, a gift on the occasion of some marriage between members of the two patrician families whose names are on the labels: NICOMACHORVM. SYMMACHORVM; or it may possibly have formed the cover of the marriage contract itself, the tabulæ nuptiales of which Juvenal speaks; or perhaps it was a joint offering to the temple of Bacchus or Cybele. The last supposition would be confirmed if the omitted word was “religio,” as suggested by Passeri, who believes that the two families took the opportunity of recording upon this diptych, on some occasion of importance common to both of them, their determination to uphold the old heathen worship against the doctrines and influence of Christianity, at that time widely extending.