London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has outmanoeuvred New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork to purchase a medieval ivory sculpture depicting Christ being introduced down from the cross. It paid simply over £2m for the work, which is equal to the $2.5m that had been provided by the Met.
The acquisition was accomplished after the Romanesque carving, titled Deposition from the Cross and courting from 1190 to 1200, was topic to an export licence deferral by the UK authorities final November. This gave the V&A the chance to match the value. The export reviewing committee, which advises the federal government, had described the sculpture as “one of the culturally and aesthetically vital objects” that it had handled up to now 5 years.
The V&A efficiently raised the cash, assisted with a £700,000 grant from the government-backed Nationwide Heritage Memorial Fund and £350,000 from the Artwork Fund, a UK charity that assists with museum purchases. Help was additionally supplied by the Headley Belief (established by Timothy Sainsbury of the Sainsbury household), whereas the museum additionally used cash from its personal sources.
Constituted of walrus ivory, the 18cm-high Deposition was in all probability half of a big sculpted altarpiece of the Ardour (the loss of life of Christ). One other smaller fragment, depicting Judas on the Final Supper, is already on the V&A, having been donated in 1949.
The rest of the altarpiece, which was almost definitely to have been made in York, has been misplaced. It was in all probability dismembered through the Reformation within the sixteenth century.
Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A, says that on this “elegant carving is captured a misplaced story of Christian tradition, Romanesque design and medieval craftsmanship”.
Nothing is understood of the Deposition’s pre-Twentieth century provenance. The sculpture was acquired, probably within the Nineteen Thirties, by John and Gertrude Hunt, who had been London-based antiquarian collectors and sellers. It was on long-term mortgage to the V&A till 2022, when it was withdrawn by their heirs to promote. The provisional sale to the Met was negotiated privately by Sotheby’s, however that was depending on an export licence being granted.
Gentle conservation is now being performed on the Deposition and it’ll go on show in September. It is going to be proven alongside the Judas fragment, within the V&A’s Medieval and Renaissance galleries.
