9th Century Box - Beginning the back

When I began this project a year ago I had no intention of it taking so long, or being so involved. However as I began working on it and my confidence increased, I have continuously pushed myself to higher levels of detail an complexity. As originally planned, the back would have had two cheetahs facing each other with a tree in the centre. Once the front panels, were finished, though, I thought that I should make more panels for the top and back which portrayed the entire story of Bellerophone and the Chimera, much like the many religious narrative scenes that one finds on medieval ivory panels and boxes.

As far as I know, there are only two extant medieval caskets with secular scenes on them. Perhaps there are a few more, but no matter the exact number, they are extremely rare, so there is not much to go on in trying to design a programme with a 9th century interpretation of a 12th century BC Greek myth. The fact that the story of Bellerophone and Pegasus was known to 9th century artists is proven by their inclusion in the mid 9th century Bible of Charles the Bald, as I demonstrated in my article covering the topic of carving the front panels for the box. (one scene from this story is also included in the Veroli Casket, in the British Museum) The illuminator who did those original drawings was most likely working from Roman or Late Antiquity (3-500 AD) illustrations or relief carvings that still existed in his time. I do not have the luxury of seeing what he had to work from, so I had to do what many medieval artists did, which was to look at the material I do have available, and adapt them to suit my interpretation of the story whilst making them fit the format of the panels which I am using.

Five scenes from the beginning of the story sketched out and ready to begin
carving; besides all the time for research, the actual drawing took
more than ten hours.

In the Württembergische Landesbibliothek (Württemberg State Library) is an early 9th century Psalter (known to medieval scholars and historians as the Stuttgart Psalter) which has a host of very fine illustrations. I chose this manuscript as my primary source of figures and inspiration for all of the remaining scenes which I will use for this box. In the first scene, Bellerophone approaches Proetus, who was the king in Tiryns, as told in the Iliad. He had just murdered someone, and came to the king for forgiveness. The second scene is King Proetus, and the third shows the king hosting a banquet in which Bellerophone is a guest. There is a break in the story, as the next scene will be on the lid, but the king's wife made advances on him which he rejected, and feeling scorned, she accused him of attempting to use her, (an oft repeated story very much like that of Joseph and Potipher's wife from the book of Genesis). King Proetus sent Bellerophone to his brother-in-law who was the king of a neighbouring country and asked him to "remove the bearer of these tablets from this world" for the crime of attempting to ravage his sister. That king also wined and dined Bellerophone before he bothered to read the message from his fellow king and thus was not willing to execute him, having shown him the hospitality of an honoured guest.

It is for this reason that I have chosen to include the two kings bracketing the banquet scene as it actually stands for both events in the story. Medieval illustrations are not nearly so linear and scene specific as what we modern readers are accustomed to in comic books and newspaper strips. In the first scene, behind Bellerophone, we see some buildings which can represent both the city of Tiryns, as well as the king's palace. Bellerophone is not depicted as "entering" the doorway, but rather gesturing to the king, as a way of progressing on to the next event in the story, thus multiple "events" and settings are often part of the same 'scene'. This is very common in medieval artwork as the following detail from an ivory panel demonstrates.

Scene from the Passion, depicting Judas attempting to return the 30
pieces of silver and hanging himself from a tree.

In this detail from an ivory book cover now in the Milan Cathedral's treasury, Judas seems to be looking at himself hanging from the tree as he attempts to return the "blood money" which he took in exchange for betraying Christ. This 'multiple events in a single scene' was a very common phenomenon in art throughout the Middle Ages.

I chose a picture of King David from the Württemberg Psalter as my Bellerophone because he had the general stance and sense of movement that I wanted in my panel. The hands had to be adjusted, and the mantle was shortened a bit so as to accommodate the format of the scene. 

Detail from folio 24v of the Württembergische Landesbibliothek
Psalter

I did the carving over the period of about one and a half weeks in my "spare time" (This is what I do for fun, when I am not "working") Here is a picture about 5 or 6 hours into the work.

One has to constantly redraw or work from memory when carving, as the lines
are immediately cut away the moment one begins carving. I put the paper
over the next scene because my hand was smudging the drawing.

The buildings were mostly inspired by those in the Milan panels and another 9th century panel in the Louvre, a detail of which is below.

Inspiration for my buildings from a 9th century ivory panel in the Louvre

The style of the modeling for the figures was drawn from the Milan panel as well, as is shown below.

Trees and figures as inspiration for my panel

Even though this holly that I am using is about the same colour as ivory, it is not ivory, and does not carve like ivory which is rather hard and can be scraped and polished to great detail. Holly is wood, which is fibrous; no matter how sharp the tools, it still will not produce the crispness which is achieved with ivory carving. I was feeling pretty good about my carving when I finished for the day, until I saw it enlarged on the screen. If you are viewing this on your laptop the image will be about one and a half times the actual size of the panel. looking at this picture I can see a lot of details which I need to try to refine a bit. Once the whole thing is finished and has a coat of blonde shellac on it, it will hopefully look a little smoother and more polished.

One scene (sort of) finished; four more to go.

9th Century Ivory Box - Right End Panel

Happy New Year to everyone. I had intended to post last week, but my "real job" has been keeping me too busy. I also had to write an article for a tool collecting newspaper; thus, this is my first posting for 2016. How did we get here already. I remember as a kid in 1974 thinking 2000 was so far away I would never live to see it, yet here it is, 2016 already!

This 9th century box I have been working on is something very important to me, I see it as a mission to demonstrate that there can be more to re-creating medieval furniture than dug-out coffers and "six plank Viking chests" Even though I have been extremely busy with my paying project, ( I have been averaging 74 hours per week on it) I still want to keep the momentum going on this little chest. Taking a cue from the tortoise, even if the progress is slow, keeping at it will eventually result in the project getting finished.

Over the past few months however, the progress has, by comparison, made the humble turtle seem to be positively streaking along. In October, when I went to take the class with Peter Follansbee, I took this panel with me, thinking that I could work on it in the evenings, and early mornings, but only managed to get the head of one bird carved before the last day of the class began. I again took it with me to my show in York, but most of my time was spent carving pieces for my job, and only on the last day, did I have about 4 hours in which I managed to get the rest of said, left-hand bird finished.

For Christmas, I determined to give myself a gift; namely the time to work on the carving again. Over that weekend I was able to get the rest of the vines and flowers carved, along with the second bird, but I still had to finish the border. I was able to get that finished, bleached out, trimmed to size, and inset, this weekend.

The bright sun really enhances the whiteness of my faux ivory.

This project has gone through a lot of evolution from my initial concept. It was originally to have been a box made all from holly, and, had I done that, it would be more than half completed by now. The first shift came, however, from my studying of several boxes which were constructed of some sort of wood with ivory panels inset, so I began making this box after that manner of construction. (For anyone reading this for the first time, I will repeat that my goal is to re-create an ivory box, but since ivory is a banned material, I have landed upon the idea of using bleached holly, which makes a fairly convincing substitute.)

Another factor in changing the construction details of the box, was the fact that the sides are a bit wider than a piece of ivory could realistically give. I have since come across a 10th century box which is about the same size, and the problem was solved by simply joining narrow strips to the panels to make them wider. At the time I began this project, however, I did not know if such methods would have been used, so I did not try to do that. I am going for a very convincing, and authentically constructed box, so if I have nothing to back up my methods, I will not use them.

Overall view of the box, viewed from the right

For some reason, I hate pictures of boxes or chests viewed from the right end, so to set the world right in my mind, I will put another view of the other end, which is the way I like to view rectangular objects.

Today was bright and the weather pleasant, so I thought it would make a
nice picture, unfortunately, it was too bright for the camera, so the details
are largely washed out. I guess I am better as a carver, than a photographer.

Up next is the back panel for this box. I have no idea when I will get finished with it, but will try to get working on it soon. This, and the top panels will continue the narrative of the story of Bellerophon and Pegasus, the subject of the front panels.

The back panel smoothed and ready to have the design drawn in.
It will be made from the centre material left from the ends
and front panel pieces. Just as with Ivory, the material is expensive
and not readily available, so care must be used to avoid waste.
I am able to get three layers of panel out of a single 25mm plank.

Furniture in the Salerno Ivories

Whenever I have free time, I usually spend it doing research on some aspect of the Middle Ages; this mostly falls into the more specific topic of furniture and furnishings of that time period. I study by examining pictures, reading books, and occasionally going to museums. (I would love to go more often, but time and budget affect that possibility considerably.

In preparing my recent post on the topic of stools in the Middle Ages, I came across a picture of a stool depicted in an 11th century ivory plaque from Salerno. I was intrigued by this picture, so I did a bit of investigation and found a book written on these ivories, and their history and cultural context, as understood by Robert Bergman, after he had conducted several years of research and study on them. In fact, the book I bought, The Salerno Ivories, was an outgrowth of his thesis on the topic.

In this posting, I want to examine the furniture depicted in these fascinating little ivory panels; in a future post I will compare these depictions with other artwork and actual objects which I believe are of the type depicted herein. I took all the pictures from my book, and have mostly only shown the furniture; should you want to see the rest of the ivories, I suggest you buy the book, as I did.

A throne chair and a foot stool

The furniture type which is most frequently depicted is the throne chair, for more of which, see this article. There are no two chairs depicted alike, even if the same person is portrayed sitting on them (which is only the case with King Herod).

Adoration of the Magi; another throne chair
and its surrounding baldachin 

King Herod, from the Massacre of the Innocents

King Herod again, this time visited by the
Magi. Notice the differences in this throne.

There are also, featured in one of the panels, a stool, a bed and a small table. In a previous post I pointed out, and will do so again here, that the bed is not a large platform supported by four spindly legs in its centre, as a literal interpretation of this picture might suggest. The artist was not concerned with depicting things as we see them, but was only interested in compositional harmony and rhythm. He had an interest in showing the turned legs for the bed, but had he carved the scene in a more realistic manner, the legs would be almost completely concealed by the seated figures, besides the fact that he seems to have wished to use the four upright legs as part of the vertical elements of his layout. 

Here is the original picture that sparked my interest in this topic

Another type of seating which has several representations is the plinth chair, which you can read more about here.

In the scene of Pentecost, the disciples are depicted either sitting on plinth
chairs or one long 'plinth bench', the end of which is portrayed on the
right of the plaque. Each figure has his own foot rest.

Three more plinth chairs and a round table
(my apologies for the sideways picture, sometimes
Google does this and I cannot figure out how to
correct it.)

Several other pieces of furniture depicted in the ivories are beds. I have shown four here, and there are actually a couple more in the series, but the details are not clear enough to be worth including them here.

The healed paralytic carrying away his bed

Noah asleep in his bed, after having gotten drunk.

Here is an example of medieval artists not being overly concerned with the details of the story whilst carrying out their creations. In the story of Noah, he was found naked and drunk, but here he is clearly already clothed before his son drapes the cloak over him. Medieval artwork is almost never to be interpreted as accurate depictions of anything, even if it may offer some visual clues.

Another(again, sideways pictured) bed, This one with decorative
turned legs and flared feet
Compare the detail of the doors in this picture with those in the above
picture of King Herod Visited by the Magi

St Joseph dreaming in a bed with bobbin and reel turned sides

And so that is nearly all the panels which have any meaningful depictions of furniture in them, but I want to put one of these pictures here a second time, in case you did not catch the other piece of furniture in it the first time.

A bottle of wine in a cabinet

Here is depicted a small bedside cabinet, with Noah's wine flagon inside. I believe it is intended as a cabinet because of how it is depicted, but I am also aware of a series of Old Testament fresco illustrations in a church in Italy which have similar cabinets beside Abraham's bed; thus giving me additional reason to believe what is pictured here is a cabinet. In one of those paintings, the doors of the cabinet are shown ajar. When I do the second half of this blog topic, I will share that picture for your own comparison.

I have often spoken about the level of detail depicted in the objects portrayed in artwork, as compared to actual decorations of objects, and the fact that artwork almost never shows the true extent of actual ornamentation. No better example of my point can be found than in the following set of pictures of ornamental fragments which originally framed these ivory plaques that we have just examined.

It is the theory of Robert Bergman, who spent several years studying these ivories, that these panels were originally part of a set of doors. As such, these ornamental bands would have formed the framework to the door panels. By looking at these decorative strips, we can get a better idea of the ornament which could have been used to decorate the sides of beds and chairs, or the legs of tables and cabinets. The remains of at least three medieval chairs, all older than these 11th century ivories, still exist, and all of them have the same degree of carved ornamentation to their structural elements. All of the decorations in the portrayed furniture are merely 'X's', zick-zacks, hatching, and dots, but this is due to the small scale of the carving. All of these ivory panels are only 90-120mm wide and to depict any accurate detail of a piece of furniture which is in an area of only 10 or 15mm would be nearly impossible, as well as being pointless. The people for whom these panels were made, already knew what beds, stools, chairs, cabinets, and tables looked like; it is only us, some 1000 years later who clamour for more information.

Several sections of ornamental carving which belong to this set of ivories

Videre Scire