Art Eyewitness: Wyvern Collection

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Saturday, January 9, 2021

Art Eyewitness Book Review: The Wyvern Collection: Byzantine and Sasanian Silver

The Wyvern Collection:

Byzantine and Sasanian Silver, Enamels & Works of Art

By Marco Aimone

Thames & Hudson/$95/552 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium, survived the fall of its western partner in 476 by almost a thousand years. Despite the amazing tenacity of the Byzantine emperors, Edward Gibbon characterized the history of their realm as “a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery.”

Gibbon was a scrupulous scholar but had limited access to the astonishing works of art created in the Byzantine dominions. Many of these were only discovered long after Gibbon finished writing The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Had Gibbon been able to study the magnificent new volume of the Wyvern Collection series, he would likely have modified his negative estimate of the "weak" and "miserable" successor of Imperial Rome.

The Wyvern Collection: Byzantine and Sasanian Silver, Enamels and Works of Art is the third volume to analyze a private collection whose works of art are rarely displayed in museum exhibitions. Published by Thames & Hudson, this latest book enables us to grasp the broad range of the Wyvern collection. The earlier volumes dealt almost exclusively with the art of the medieval West and I mistakenly stated in my first review that "the Wyvern collection has only a few works of art from the Byzantine Empire."

I stand corrected.

Volume III of the Wyvern series provides insight on stunning Byzantine art works, dating from Late Antiquity to the time of the Crusades. These masterpieces refute any remaining misconceptions of Byzantium as "weak" and "miserable."

Page spread from The Wyvern Collection: Byzantine and Sasani

an Silver, showing Plate with a horse & rider attacked by a lioness, 12th century.

©The Wyvern Collection &Thames & Hudson, Ltd.

Not only were the high standards of ancient culture preserved by the artists of the Byzantine Empire, but many of the brilliant works of art discussed in this magnificent book reveal an unprecedented upsurge in spirituality, the Christian Revolution.

Byzantium, based on its capital city of Constantinople, was a Christian empire. The conversion of the Roman emperor, Constantine I (272-337) to Christianity decisively shifted the religious orientation of the Roman Empire eastward. There, in Syria and in Egypt, Christianity had been embraced by ever-growing numbers of the populace, especially in leading cities like Antioch and Alexandria.

Perhaps the key work of art of the entire book is the Processional Cross, made in the mid-eleventh century. It is a Latin-style cross with five roundel images on each side. Those on the front were gilded, with the icon of Christ Pantokrator (cosmic ruler) in the center. The reverse side features images created in the niello process. Mary, the mother of Jesus, occupies the central placement. Mary is depicted in the Virgin Hodegetria pose, "She Who Points the Way."

Byzantine Processional Cross, mid-11th century.

©The Wyvern Collection &Thames & Hudson, Ltd.

Throughout the book, we see this Latin cross in many forms, a cross from a book binding, a reliquary cross, a cross engraved in the center of a Eucharistic dish or paten. All testify to one of the supreme events of Christian history, the crucifixion of Jesus, and to a moment of high political drama, as well. This was the Battle of Milvian Bridge, October 28, 312. Just prior to the battle against a rival for the Imperial throne, Constantine saw the shape of such a cross in the sky, accompanied by the words, "In this sign, conquer!"

Up to that point, Constantine had shown little interest in the Christian religion. Yet, something mystical must have happened. Constantine heeded the vision and went on to win the battle. The victory set the stage for his eventual conversion to Christianity, which Byzantine artists never ceased depicting.

I had the good fortune to be able to study a similar cross, The Adrianople Cross, from the Benaki Museum in Athens. This inspiring object was positioned at the entrance to the 2013 Heaven and Earth exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. It was an unforgettable moment, underscoring the importance of art to religious belief - and vice versa.

A counterpart to the Adrianople Cross and the Processional Cross, shown above, will be familiar to art lovers who have seen or studied the mosaic of the Emperor Justinian and Archbishop Maximian in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. Indeed, examples of the other objects depicted in this famous scene - the glittering presentation vessel carried by Justinian, the incense-burning censor held by a clergyman in the retinue - are analyzed in considerable detail in this new volume of the Wyvern series.

Detail of the mosaic of The Emperor Justinian and His Retinue,

from the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, c. 547

If many of the objects in the Wyvern Collection bring to mind similar works of art displayed in museums, others are less familiar and indeed are "wondrous strange." None fits this description better than the Enkolpion of Constantinos.

Created around the same time as the Processional Cross, the Enkolpion of Constantinos was a small devotional object, measuring 7.1 x 5.9 cm (approximately 3 inches by 2.5 inches). Suspended on a thin chain around the neck, it was worn over the chest. There are other enkolpions studied in the present volume which were carved as single images, just like a religious medal today. Not so, the Enkolpion of Constantinos!

The Enkolpion of Constantinos, 11th century.

©The Wyvern Collection &Thames & Hudson, Ltd.

The Enkolpion of Constantinos opens to form a miniature triptych. It measures 11.4 cm or 4 1/2 inches in width. Two side panels show Christian saints and a central scene (shown above) portrays a Byzantine emperor worshiping at the feet of Christ Pantokrator. In essence, this enkolpion is a miniature altar piece. It is a small wonder indeed!

The Wyvern Collection: Byzantine and Sasanian Silver, Enamels and Works of Art is a wonder too, though hardly a small one. It is splendidly illustrated, authoritative in its analysis and - within the parameters of scholarly writing - very readable. The main text was written by Italian scholar, Marco Aimone, a senior curator for the Wyvern Collection. A supplemental essay on Byzantine enameling technique was provided by Jack Ogden. This, by every standard, is a definitive examination of one of the most sensational of all Byzantine art forms.

As the title of the book proclaims, works of art from the great rival of early Byzantium, the Sasanian Persian Empire, are also studied. Although ever bit as accomplished as those of Byzantium, these Sasanian art works were backward-looking in theme. The hunting scenes are a deliberate throwback to ancient Persian, indeed Assyrian, art. The more sensual motifs, likewise, recall Hellenistic Greek art. The same applied to much late-Roman art, also examined in this book.

Byzantine art was much more dynamic - an accolade seldom given to this reputably "static" civilization. Byzantine art is moving art. Byzantine art, including icons, moves our minds, our hearts, our souls in transcendent directions.

Bronze vessel in the shape of a dove, 3rd-4th century

©The Wyvern Collection &Thames & Hudson, Ltd.

This bronze vessel, with silver inlay from the beginning of the Byzantine period, might represent the Holy Spirit or may be just a dove. It might have served a liturgical purpose or functioned as an unguentaria, a cosmetic receptacle. The superb naturalism of its form serves either purpose and succeeds so brilliantly that our imaginations take flight just looking at it!

What better comment or praise can we give to wonderful works of art, such as these, or to the mighty volume which presents them to us? Though hardly bed-side reading, The Wyvern Collection: Byzantine and Sasanian Silver, Enamels and Artwork is a worthy successor to the earlier volumes. It is a book to be cherished, a feast for the eyes and the intellect and balm for the soul.

***

The Emperopr Justinian and His Retinue; detail of mosaic from the left side (north wall) of the apse, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. Courtesy of the University of Michigan - Art Images for College Teaching. EC251

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Art Eyewitness Book Review: The Wyvern Collection: Medieval and Later Ivory Carvings and Small Sculpture

The Wyvern Collection:

Medieval and Later Ivory Carvings and Small Sculpture

By Paul Williamson

Thames & Hudson/$95/448 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

During the Middle Ages, artists working on masterpieces of religious art utilized the most precious of materials to create sacred objects. Not merely beautiful, these works of art were holy treasures. Crafted by human hands, they were inspired by God.

Gold, silver, gem stones, rock crystal, expensive paint pigments made by grinding semi-precious minerals, silk imported over vast distances from Constantinople and points east. These were the "raw" materials of Ars Sacra.

There was one other highly-valued substance to which medieval craftsmen - and their patrons - devoted much attention. Rare, often unattainable, this artistic medium was mentioned in the Bible, along with gold and jewels, has having been lavished by King Solomon on his palace in Jerusalem: ivory.

An authoritative - and breathtakingly beautiful - book has recently been published by Thames & Hudson which recounts the story of this intricate and exacting art form.

Medieval and Later Ivory Carvings and Small Sculpture includes a number of works of art made from other precious materials, mother-of-pearl, amber, red porphry. These chapters, fascinating to be sure, are sidebars to the main theme, the painstaking carving of elephant and walrus tusks to create ivory devotional objects of astonishing beauty.

Today, at least in the Western world, the idea of using ivory from elephant tusks to create a work of art sparks outrage and horror. During the Middle Ages, ivory was often difficult to procure but it was not because elephants were facing extinction. It was simply a matter that nothing was too precious that it should not be used to honor God.

Head of a Crozier with the Coronation of the Virgin, mid-14th century

The use of rare and costly materials to create works of sacred art underscores the word "use." These ivory carvings were intended to be used.They were not created as status symbols for their owners, either religious institutions like monasteries or wealthy nobles and merchants. Often times, possessing a table-top ivory triptych did serve to confirm the elite status of the owner (if only in their minds) but devotional use was paramount.

One of the key figures of Western cultural history, Abbot Suger (1081-1151) commented on the importance of ivory religious art, celebrating an especially notable example, "admirable for the most subtle and in our time unattainable carving of its ivory plaques, which exceeded human valuation in the representation of ancient histories."

The object of Suger's praise was the pulpit of the church at the monastery of St. Denis, one of the holiest shrines in France. Most of the ivory art works in the Thames & Hudson book were made for humbler settings.

Diptych with the Virgin and Child and the Crucifixion, c. 1320.

There was an upsurge of piety in Western Europe, following 1000 A.D., with an emphasis on private devotion. It continued into the High Middle Ages, as can be seen above in the Diptych with the Virgin and Child and the Crucifixion, made in the Rhineland, around 1320. The carved figures are set in shallow boxes joined by two hinges. Opened at prayer or reflection times, closed during the rest of the day, this diptych transformed a monk's cell or a nobleman's bedroom into a chapel.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2019)

A view of Romanesque and early Gothic art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Many of the great museums of Europe and the United States have impressive collections of medieval ivory art works. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has over two hundred, at its main building and at the fabulous Cloisters located at Fort Tryon Park on the northern tip of Manhattan. The collection of the Walters Museum in Baltimore is even more impressive with over seven hundred medieval "ivories."

You will not find one ivory work of art from the Met or the Walters - or from an other museum - in the Thames & Hudson volume. The magnificent works of art in the book all belong to a private collection, the Wyvern Collection. Sensibly, the owner has kept his (or her) identity private, as well as the location of these wonderful works of art.

Medieval and Later Ivory Carvings and Small Sculpture is the second Thames and Hudson book to study the Wyvern Collection. The first volume, published in 2018, surveyed sculptures made from wood, stone and metalwork.

The origins of European Ivories can be traced to secular artifacts, like the hilts of Viking swords which often had grips carved from Walrus tusks or the antlers of reindeer. Game pieces like the celebrated Lewis Chessmen of the British Museum were made from walrus ivory. There are a number of delightful game pieces in the Wyvern collection but its most magnificent secular work, carved from ivory, is surely the hunting horn or oliphant shown below.

Oliphant with hunting scenes and wild animals, late 11th or early 12th century.

This oliphant is believed to have made in southern Italy during the late eleventh century.
During this period, the Normans, Vikings on horseback, were aggressively establishing feudal states in Italy and Sicily. One of the most extraordinary sagas in medieval history, the story of the Normans in Italy was memorably recounted by the great historian, John Julius Norwich in his books, The Other Conquest and The Kingdom in the Sun.

The hunting motifs on this horn, however, show cultural signs of the political power which the Normans sought to overturn. As the astute commentary in the Thames & Hudson book notes, "the figure style reveals a Byzantine sensibility transformed into a Western idiom, a mixture commonly found in south Italian Romanesque sculpture."

Artists of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire had long upheld the ancient craft of ivory carving. Much of the religious imagery of Christianity in Western Europe can be traced to presentation pieces sent by the emperors of Byzantium to the rulers of the rising kingdoms of Western Europe. Along with the finished art works from Constantinople came the raw material itself, elephant tusks from East Africa.

It is a noteworthy that the ivory used during the late Middle Ages came from the tusks of wild elephants from East Africa, rather than from the Indian subcontinent. The tusks of African elephants are longer than those from India. Both male and female African elephants grow tusks. The trade in elephant tusks from Africa to Constantinople and later to Italy came via Islamic states and was frequently interrupted by war.

At such times, artists in Europe reworked existing pieces of ivory, some made hundreds of years previously, or carved small plaques, to conserve ivory. These were then incorporated into larger works, such as this reliquary triptych from Siena, dating to 1370.

The carved plaques depict the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion. The painted scene shows the Annunciation, created by Bartolo di Fredi (c.1330–1410). Above the ivory plaques is the portrait of a saint, likely one of the patrons of Siena, St. Ansanus. In a particularly moving touch, God the Father, painted all in sacred blue, hovers over the head of the Angel Gabriel. Thirteen round holes once held relics of Christian saints.

This deeply moving work of art and piety is made all the more incredible by considering its small size. When open, the triptych measures, approximately 14 inches high by 15 inches in width. The ivory plaques are even more astonishing, each measuring a mere 4 inches in height by 2 1/2 inches wide.

The story of this small wonder does not end with its diminutive size or the artistic skill which went into its creation. Created around 1370, the triptych dates to the years following the Black Death. A world-wide pandemic, Bubonic plague reached Europe from the Mongol domains in 1347. The Black Death is believed to have killed over a third of the continent's population. Siena, the rival city to Florence in Tuscany, was especially hard-hit, with half of its citizenry perishing.

Tom Holland, in his new history of Christianity, Dominion, notes that an ancient statue of Venus had been unearthed in Siena shortly before the outbreak of the plague. The rediscovery and appreciation of ancient art was just beginning in Italy and the town fathers of Siena decided to display the nude Venus in the town square. With the coming of the Black Death, the hunt for scapegoats commenced. The "shameless" Venus was targeted for blame and smashed to bits.

The surviving people of Siena were lectured to forget about Venus and cherish the special role of the Virgin Mary in Christian doctrine. This post-Black Death reliquary triptych is thus a reminder of a terrible period of human history. It also highlights the human capacity to find spiritual meaning and new visions of beauty even in the most appalling of circumstances.

Central panel of a tabernacle polyptych with the Virgin and Child, c. 1250–60

The role, some might say "cult," of the Virgin Mary in late medieval Christianity is a complex issue. Tom Holland, in Dominion, treats it masterfully and I plan to review his book in the new year.

In an earlier post, I reflected on the Byzantine roots of the Virgin Mary's place in art, as well as religion. The later Middle Ages is no less fascinating as we can see in this ivory masterpiece.

The Central panel of a tabernacle polyptych with the Virgin and Child (above) was likely made in the north of France, around 1250–60. The Virgin and Christ Child shelter in an edifice which mimics the design of the great cathedrals like Chartres and Notre Dame in Paris. These soaring places of sanctity thrill the eye but it is the worship of believing Christians taking place there which make these cathedrals holy places.

The pose of the Virgin and Child in the above work of art re-appears throughout this wonderful Thames & Hudson book. Amidst the Black Death, the Hundred Years War and countless other human-contrived horrors, people of faith created and cherished the works of art in the Wyvern Collection as testaments of their religious belief.

Art lovers today should be grateful to the Wyvern Collection's owner for preserving these ivory works of art. A "shout-out" should also go the author of the accompanying text, Paul Williamson, and to Thames & Hudson for publishing this beautiful volume and its predecessor.

Hopefully, further volumes are in the works and, better still, an exhibition will be organized to present some of the Wyvern Collection treasures to the appreciative gaze of people of faith today.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved Images courtesy of the Wyvern Collection and Thames & Hudson Publishers

Introductory Image:

Book Cover of The Wyvern Collection: Medieval and Later Ivory Carvings and Small

Sculpture. Courtesy Thames & Hudson
Head of a crozier with the Coronation of the Virgin. Probably north Italian, mid-14th century. Elephant ivory; h. 32.1 cm (incl. knop), 24.5 cm (not incl. knop and
leaf crockets), w. 10.7 cm (volute only) No. 0817 © 2019 The Wyvern Collection

Diptych with the Virgin and Child and the Crucifixion. Lower Rhenish (Cologne), c. 1320. Elephant ivory and wood (probably maple or walnut), painted and gilded; h. 20.6 cm, w. 27 cm (open) No. 0572 © 2019 The Wyvern Collection

Anne Lloyd Photo (2019) A view of Romanesque and early Gothic art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Oliphant with hunting scenes and wild animals. Probably south Italian, late 11th or early 12th century. Elephant ivory; l. 60.2 cm, diam. 12.9 cm (at bell) No. 0580 © 2019 The Wyvern Collection

Reliquary triptych with plaques of the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion
Painted by Bartolo di Fredi (c. 1330–1410) Tuscan (Siena), c. 1370 (triptych); French, c. 1350–70 (ivory plaques). Tempera and gold leaf on wood, elephant ivory, painted; h. 35.5 cm, w. 38.5 cm (open), 18.9 cm (closed), 23.6 cm (at base) No. 0442 © 2019 The Wyvern Collection

Central panel of a tabernacle polyptych with the Virgin and Child. Probably northern French, c. 1250–60. Elephant ivory, with traces of paint and gilding; h. 18 cm, w. 5.3 cm, d. 4 cm No. 1018 © 2019 The Wyvern Collection

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Art Eyewitness Book Review: The Wyvern Collection

The Wyvern Collection

Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture and Metalwork

By Paul Williamson

Thames & Hudson/ 384 pages/$95

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Many of the great art museums in Europe and North America preserve significant collections of Christian devotional art from the Middle Ages. A few institutions like the Cloisters Museum in New York City and the Musée de Cluny in Paris specialize exclusively in the magnificent art of Christendom, created during the ten centuries from the fall of Rome to the rise of the Renaissance.

One of the great, modern-day, assemblages of medieval art, however, cannot be found in a museum. The Wyvern Collection was amassed by an unknown - or at least unnamed - art enthusiast over the last thirty years. Thames and Hudson has just published a splendid catalog, highlighting 213 works of art from the Wyvern Collection.

The decades-long act of amassing the Wyvern Collection is an astonishing example of single-minded devotion to preserving - and sharing - the treasures of the past. In the preface to the book, the personal motivation for collecting these talismans of medieval civilization is explained:

For me, collecting has always been about the wonder of the creative process and awe at the skill of the artist, although most of those who are represented in this volume are anonymous.

Fittingly, the identity of the Wyvern collector remains anonymous.

Superlatives are quickly exhausted after paging through The Wyvern Collection. I was particularly impressed with several of the more "primitive" pieces, statues of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus from Catalonia and Umbria in Italy, both dating, c.1230-60.

The new Thames and Hudson book is a work of art, as well. The large format of the illustrations, along with their clarity and fidelity to color tones, enable readers to appreciate art treasures they are unlikely to see anytime soon.

Part of the Wyvern collection was displayed in a special exhibit in 2005 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Until the happy day when a repeat presentation is mounted, the Thames and Hudson volume is as good as it gets and this book is superlative.

Special credit should go the author of the accompanying text, Paul Williamson. For many years the curator of medieval sculpture at the V & A, Williamson is one of the world's leading authorities on the art of the Middle Ages. His informative commentary is a model of close analysis and of wide-ranging references to similar works of art.

Before we examine some of the treasures of the Wyvern collection, it important to recognize a salient fact about the Christian art of the Middle Ages. The wonder about the medieval art of Christendom is that any has survived at all.

Over the centuries, Christian art has been subjected to savage campaigns of destruction. The Vikings, the Mongols and the Ottoman Turks inflicted great damage during the Middle Ages and early modern era. But the worst perpetrators of violence against Christian art were themselves Christians.

The very act of Christian vandalism of Christian art gave rise to the term Iconoclasm. The inspiring Icons of the Greek Orthodox Church were subjected to widespread destruction from 754 to 843 AD. A group of militaristic Byzantine emperors tried to "purify" the very religion they had sworn to defend.

The Wyvern collection has only a few works of art from the Byzantine Empire. Most of the Wyvern treasures date from the era of the building of the great cathedrals in Western Europe during the twelfth through the fourteenth century.

In medieval art, form followed function - and faith. An excellent example is the Plaque with the Crucifixion, which is likely to have served as the cover for that rarest of treasures - a sacred book.

Plaque with the Crucifixion. Northern Spain, c. 1150-75

Created in the north of Spain, c. 1150-75, the plaque was made by the repoussé technique. A sheet of copper was hammered from the reverse side to form the low relief image of the crucifixion. Forward-facing images of personifications of the sun and moon hover above the extended arms of the crucified Christ. These recall the way that saints posed in Byzantine icons. They also testify to the tenacious staying power of pagan motifs.

Plaque with the Crucifixion also points to the future of European art. The flanking positions of the Virgin Mary and St. John would be used time and again in paintings of the Crucifixion by Flemish masters like Rogier van der Weyden and his Renaissance successors.

Here, in this one object d'art, we can see the progression of the Western artistic tradition.

Such exquisite works of art from the Gothic era are survivors of two of the worst acts of Iconoclasm in history: the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution. The Plaque with the Crucifixion likely escaped destruction because the power and religious fervor of the Spanish monarchy held Iconoclasm at bay in Spain. Other nations were not so fortunate.

Destruction of Christian art was carried out with particular ruthlessness in England during the Reformation and the related Puritan revolt of the 1640's. A document from that tragic time illustrates the zealous bigotry common to "Iconoclasts" throughout history.

In 1547, the government of Edward VI, the sickly, young successor to Henry VIII, ordered the clergy of England:

To take away, utterly extinct and destroy all shrines, coverings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindles or rolls of wax, pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition: so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass-windows or elsewhere within their churches or houses. And they shall exhort their parishioners to do the like within their several houses.

Similar instructions were issued by the Republican tribunals during the French Revolution. While Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were busy sending “enemies of the state” to meet Madame Guillotine, their henchmen were decapitating statues of biblical characters, Hebrew kings like David or Solomon and New Testament figures like Joseph of Arimathea.

The Wyvern collection contains several such severed heads. One especially battered example, from France, c, 1160 , shows the head of an apocalyptic figure. Similar examples have been traced to the church of Notre-Dame de la Couldre in Parthenay. These, dispersed to museum collections around the world, are believed to have been hacked down during the French Revolution. Certainly the damage to this "elder" would support this conclusion.

Head of a Young Man. France or, c. 1300

Another head (c.1300), perhaps of an angel, bears comparison with the damaged elder. With an enigmatic smile recalling a kouros of archaic Greece, this striking work of art shows no sign of desecration. It was clearly removed from a stone structure but not, according to Williamson, severed from a statue.

Might it have been "removed" from a medieval church during the early years of the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century? Collectors are not iconoclasts but when a medieval work of art is wrenched from its surroundings, the effect is the same.

To continue commenting on the subject of Iconoclasm would be a disservice to the Wyvern collection. These medieval treasures can be viewed from a number of vantage points. In terms of the number of first-rank works of art, statues of the Virgin Mary with Christ Child dominate the Wyvern collection. These remind us of the revolutionary change in the appreciation of women that took place in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance - thanks in large part to the Christian reverence for the mother of Jesus.

Goddess or Gorgon. In the ancient world, Greek and Roman art had little place for women save in these two conflicting roles. With the rise - and survival - of Byzantine icons that changed.

Acknowledgement as saints in heaven and a positive role model in this world were achieved for women through veneration of the Virgin Mary. Her status as Theotokos Hodegetria, "Mother of God who shows the way," influenced art throughout Christendom and inspired unparalleled levels of beauty during the Gothic era and the Renaissance.

The Virgin and Child. France or South Netherlands (Belgium), c. 1380-1400

An especially fascinating example is The Virgin and Child, crafted from fruitwood in the southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) or northern France, c.1380-1400. Pious and demure, the Virgin Mary bows her head to the infant Jesus who seems older and wiser than his years would allow. Jesus raises his hand in benediction and Mary lowers her gaze in acknowledgement of God's favor.

This role reversal is difficult to understand in our secularized world. Yet a Christian during the Middle Ages would have understood that this image of a beautiful, girlish Mary was not created to tempt us to "worship" her. Rather, this sculpture was intended to remind us that the salvation of all believers , including the Virgin Mary, comes from the divine child she holds in her arms.

By comparison, images of the Christ Child as an individual are comparatively rare. The Infant of Prague, which dates to the late sixteenth century, springs readily to mind. The Wyvern collection has an Infant Christ, carved from Walnut wood, and painted and gilded. It was lovingly preserved, perhaps as part of a chapel or convent collection. It would never have been displayed nude, as we see here, but would have been clothed in rich garments, depending on the dates of the Christian liturgical calendar.

The Infant Christ. South Netherlands (Belgium), c. 1500-10

This charming sculpture does represent a "humanization" of the idea of God. This was a theological innovation of St. Francis of Assisi during the early thirteenth century. Christian teaching has always affirmed that humans are created "in the image and likeness" of God. But the practice of setting up Christmas nativity scenes, credited to St. Francis, was controversial.

To the Reformation leaders the "humanization of God" turned Christian doctrine inside-out. God was being re-cast, in their offended view, in man's image.

That inversion did not trouble the French revolutionaries who as devout Utopians aimed to make man into a god. But Christian devotional images disturbed them greatly for these provided human beings with an alternative route to self-fulfillment and to a cosmic vision where the State was not the ultimate reality.

As a result, Iconoclasts of both camps went to war against Christian images. What we see of the Wyvern collection in this beautiful book is a mere remnant, a testament to what was lost.

One of my cultural heroes, Carl Sagan, wrote, "History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us.”

History also raises-up human beings, of generous spirit and enlightened minds, who dedicate themselves to saving and sharing "treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us.”

Mr. "Wyvern" (if I may be so bold)... many thanks.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved
Photos Courtesy: The Wyvern Collection and Thames & Hudson

Introductory Image: The Wyvern Collection Book Cover: Courtesy Thames & Hudson

Plaque with the Crucifixion. Northern Spanish (Aragon or Navarre), c. 1150-75. Copper; repoussé, over a wood core; h. 31cm, w. 21 cm. No. 0614. © 2018 The Wyvern Collection
Provenance: Bought from Bruno Speybrouck, Kortrijk, Belgium, September 2006. Formerly in the Parra collection, Zaragoza, until 2003; Luis Elvira, Castelló; Jan Pareyn, Brussels

Head of a Young Man. French (Île-de-France, or possibly Burgundy or Champagne), c. 1300 Limestone, painted; h. 24 cm No. 1565 © 2018 The Wyvern Collection
Provenance: Bought at Delorme & Collin du Bocage auction, Cannes, 2 August 2011, lot 25, through Sam Fogg, London. On loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1993-2000; Sotheby’s, New York, 22 May 2001, lot 15; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10 December 2010, lot 230.

The Virgin and Child. French or South Netherlandish, c. 1380-1400. Fruitwood (possibly pear), painted and gilded; h. 21.5 cm. No. 1696. © 2018 The Wyvern Collection
Provenance: Bought from Sam Fogg, London, May 2012. Formerly in a Dutch private collection; Jan Roelofs, Maastricht.

The Infant Christ. South Netherlandish (Mechelen and Brussels), c. 1500-10. Walnut, painted and gilded (figure); oak, gilded, with applied lead ornaments (base); h. 33.4 cm (figure), 4.7 cm (base). No. 1819. © 2018 The Wyvern Collection
Provenance: Bought from Bernard Descheemaeker Works of Art, Antwerp, January 2013. Formerly in a Belgian private collection.