Diptych with Scenes from the Life of Saint Martin of Tours: The Consecration of Saint Martin as Bishop (left); Saint Martin Shares his Cloak with a Beggar (1340–1350): Art, History and Details

Diptych with Scenes from the Life of Saint Martin of Tours: The Consecration of Saint Martin as Bishop (left); Saint Martin Shares his Cloak with a Beggar (1340–1350) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This beautiful and well-preserved diptych includes its original polychromy, gilding, and silver hinges, though these are no longer connected. With its lapis background, red roof tiles, and gilded details of the figures’ clothing, the appearance is one of luxuriousness. The diptych provides us with a rare and vivid impression of how such devotional ivories were originally decorated in the 1300s.

Object facts

• Title: Diptych with Scenes from the Life of Saint Martin of Tours: The Consecration of Saint Martin as Bishop (left); Saint Martin Shares his Cloak with a Beggar
• Date: 1340–1350
• Culture: Germany, Cologne
• Type: Ivory
• Technique: ivory with polychromy and gilding, original silver hinges
• Dimensions: Overall: 9.2 cm (3 5/8 in.); Closed: 5.2 cm (2 1/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1971.103

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Barnet, Peter. Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age. Detroit, MI: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997.
• “Twelve Additions to the Medieval Treasury.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 59, no. 4 (April 1972): 87–111.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.