The Barberini Ivory
Unknown (Constantinople) · 525-550
An emperor on a rearing horse fills the central panel, carved so deeply that his head and the horse's foreleg stand almost free of the ivory. His lance is planted in the ground and held by a bearded man in a soft cap, a Persian or a Scythian by his dress. Beneath the horse a woman holding fruit, the personification of the Earth, reaches up to touch the emperor's foot: the world itself supports him. In the upper panel two angels hold a medallion of Christ blessing, while in the panel on the left a general in armour offers a statuette of Victory. Along the bottom, barbarians from east and west bring tribute and lead in a lion, a tiger and an elephant. The plaque on the right is lost; a winged Victory stood there, holding a crown.
Look at the way the five pieces fit together. Grooves and tongues lock the side plaques around the central one, which allowed a leaf far wider than any single tusk. The relief runs from the flat, almost engraved figures of the frieze to the near sculpture of the central rider, and the carver knew how to make the ivory show off: hair, mail, harness and the folds of the tunic are each given their own texture. The emperor is most probably Justinian, who reigned from 527 to 565, though Anastasius has also been proposed.
It is the only nearly complete imperial diptych leaf to survive, and it was made in Constantinople in the second quarter of the sixth century. By the seventh century it was in southern Gaul, where a list of names was written on the back. The scholar Peiresc owned it at Aix-en-Provence and gave it to Cardinal Francesco Barberini when the cardinal passed through Aix on the twenty-sixth of October 1625. It stayed with the Barberini in Rome until 1899, when the Louvre bought it in Paris.
Did You Know? A seventh-century hand used the back of this imperial ivory to write a list of names, probably of the dead to be prayed for in a church in Gaul.
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