File:The ivory workers of the middle ages (1906) (14757026356).jpg

Identifier: ivoryworkersmidage00cust (find matches)
Title: The ivory workers of the middle ages
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Cust, Anna Maria Elizabeth
Subjects: Ivories
Publisher: London, G. Bell and sons
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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ractersin search of a name, he attributes the portrait tothe Empress Irene, widow of Leo lY., and longReo^ent for her ten-vear-old son Constantine IV.,for she alone would dare to be portrayed throned,and with all the attributes of sovereignty. It wasIrene who, in the middle of the Iconoclastic period,convened a council of the Church, repealed thenew laws, and encourao^ed the use of relioriousimages throughout her realm. This attribution would bring the date of thediptych down to the end of the eighth century,and later than the style would seem to warrant;and it is vigorously opposed by Graeven, who de-clares that after the first half of the sixth century,there were no more purely secular representations;and that the coins of Irene represent her with bothdiadem and sceptre surmounted by a cross. To this may be added the affinity of the archi-tecture with that on diptychs of the early sixthcentury, as the eagles on the top, which are ex-actly like those surmountino- the Bourp^es (No. 29
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ALINARI PHOTO.) (BARGELLO, FLORENCE 5. LEAF OF THE DIPTYCH OF AMALASUNTHA (?) Italian, sixth century CONSULAR DIPTYCHS 39) and St. Gregory (No. 44) diptychs. i\lsothe columns with tightly wound curtains are ex-tremely near in design to those on the tablets ofthe Poet and Muse at Monza (No. 63). Curtains,however, with horizontal stripes were fairly con-stant all through early art, but were less used instrictly Byzantine Art than in any other. Graeven having given good reasons for placingthis ivorv in the first half of the sixth centurv,suggests that it represents Amalasuntha, daughterof Theodoric, who, by right of conquest and thereluctant consent of the Emperor of the East, wasKing of Italy from 493-526 ; and who, by goodgovernment, had brought about some measure oforder, and induced a slight renaissance of the arts.Amalasuntha governed at Pavia in the name ofher young son Athalric (Fig. 5). Graeven suggests that these two are also repre-sented in the medallions on the diptych of Ores

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