Title
Saint Peter in the papal chair carrying the double key
Generic classification
Ivory carvingObject
PlaqueDate
ca. 1109-1126, reinado de Urraca ICentury
First quarter of the 12th c.Cultural context / style
RomanesqueDimensions
5,71 inMaterial
IvoryTechnique
CarvedIconography / Theme
San PedroProvenance
León (León, Spain)Current location
Glencairn Museum (Filadelfia, United States)Inventory Number in Current Collection
O4.CR.40Object history
Adolph Goldschmidt published one of the earliest approaches to this piece of ivory indicating that it was found, around 1926 in the possession of Sammlung Raymond Pitcairn (1885-1966), in Bryn Athyn (Montgomery County, Pennsylvania). The Germanic author published a first one in table XXIV, number 82 and identified it as St. Peter, dating it to the 12th century. Already at that time he considered it a Hispanic production.
Although the historiography was clear that the Leonese presea belonged to Pitcairn, it is very relevant that he points out an intermediate episode in the history of the object, indicating that it came from the art market of Valencia.
The most recent monographic study of this ivory, with inventory number O4.CR.40, was carried out in situ in the premises of the Glencairn Museum (Álvarez da Silva, 2013) and it was clarified that the ivory had been bought by Raymond Pitcairn through his intermediary, the dealer Joseph Brummer (1883-1947), antique dealer of the Boulevard St. Germain, entering the American collection on June 9, 1922.
In conclusion: the plate must have left León for Valladolid, from there it traveled to Valencia, to end up in New York. More concretely its journey can be refined because in 1918 it was owned by Emile Pares who sold it in New York to the Daguerre collection. The investigations of Alvarez da Silva revealed that the documentation of the museum indicated that the sale was made by Nicholas Brimo to J. Brummer, for 18,000 francs and this in June of that year sent a telegram to Raymond Pitcairn to indicate that he had bought 5 ivories, specifying that the pieces came from the Daguerre collection. Another letter of December 9, 1923 written by Walter W. S. Cook, the Hispanist and scholar of medieval painting wrote to Pitcairn to ask to see the Hispanic ivory from the Glencairn collection and claimed that he had photographed it in Valencia and that the work had been sold in Valladolid.
Description
St. Peter, 14.5 cm, was carved on a plate whose base seems to have been cut out, while the nimbus has a hole that even in Adolf Goldschmidt's photo shows a metal washer for hanging. It was suggested that this hole may have been made to nail the plate to the wooden core of a locket, but, considering that the piece has been cut and the roughness of the hole, it seems to have been made much later, when the washer was also added. It is possible that the holes for the nails would be in the cut part of the plate, in the margins and not in the nimbus, with such a crude solution.
The hairstyle of the figure is striking, like locks that generate a sort of cap, curling on themselves at the end, in front of the smooth beard. Again the eyes harbored incrustations, but we do not know if they were azabaches, pearls, vitreous paste or sapphires, as indicated by Vázquez de Parga (1964), for the Christ of Ferdinand I and Sancha of the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid.
The German researcher already compared the draping of our ivory with other pieces (numbers 108 and 109 of plate XXXVII) and said that the use of sogueado for the edge of the nimbus and the laves could be related to the ivory of the women before the tomb preserved today in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg and also from León,
The "graphic style" of the canvases could be related to the paintings of the Royal Pantheon of San Isidoro de Leon, dated when Goldschmidt was writing in the time of Ferdinand II (1157-1188), but this date is today rejected by all researchers. For our part, we believe that there is no problem to contextualize the two ivories, the one preserved in Russia and the other in the United States, in the time of Queen Urraca I (1109-1136).
The sculptor, fine and skilled, has focused on the finials and orophreses, pearlescent, with zigzag or honeycomb, a work that remembers, distantly, the sumptuousness of the canvases conceived by the sculptor of the whalebone of the Victoria and Albert in London (inventory number 142-1866).
The meticulousness of the craftsman created a piece of great quality, with two very different keys, the one on the left being smooth, the one on the right with a diamond-shaped top and the second one circular, intertwining. It was indicated that these are two keys, the binding and the unbinding, perhaps in allusion to the biblical text: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And to you I will give the keys of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:18-19) (Franco Mata 2010; Álvarez da Silva 2013). It is no coincidence that both the hairstyle, the facial treatment and, particularly, something as concrete as the keys resemble those carried by the same saint on the south gable cover of the Romanesque Isidorian church and where the north tympanum of the transept, now dismantled and destroyed, may have featured the episode of the liberation of St. Peter. This, added to the fact that the so-called "portapaz" of the Isidorian Museum has a silver inscription that alludes to the Petrine relics, leads us to think of the importance of the Roman saint, both in the medallions and in the reliquaries and monumental sculpture. This eburnean piece could have been fundamental in this visual story.
In the other hand he carries an open book, without any sculpted motif, perhaps because they were painted.
The chair where he sat has been lost and a careful analysis of the piece reveals that it has been cut, showing remains of the lower left area, where we can see elements finally carved, we do not know if imitating skins or feathers.
Locations
XIIth c.
province
León, León (Spain)
Early XXth c.
municipality
Valladolid, Valladolid (Spain)
Early XXth c.
dealer/antiquarian
Art market, Valencia, Valencia (Spain) *
1918
dealer/antiquarian
Emilio Pares, Paris (France) *
1918
dealer/antiquarian
Henri Daguerre, Paris (France) *
ca. 1922
dealer/antiquarian
Joseph Brummer, New York (United States) *
1922
private collection
Raymond Pitcairn, Filadelfia (United States) *
ca. 1966 - present
Bibliography
- ÁLVAREZ DA SILVA, Noemí (2013): "Dos apóstoles románicos de marfil en el museo de Glencairn (Philadelphia)", nº 12, De Arte, pp. 59-78.
- ÁLVAREZ DA SILVA, Noemí (2014): El trabajo del marfil en la España del siglo XI. (Tesis Doctoral), Universidad de León, León.
- FRANCO MATA, Ángela (2011): "“Arte medieval leonés fuera de España”", en PÉREZ MULET, Fernando y SOCIAS BATET, Inmaculada (dir.), La Dispersion de Objetos de Arte fuera de Espana en los Siglos XIX y XX, en en PÉREZ MULET, Fernando y SOCIAS BATET, Inmaculada (dir.), La Dispersion de Objetos de Arte fuera de España en los Siglos XIX y XX., Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, pp. 93-132.
- GOLDSCHMIDT, Adolph (1926): Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sächsischen Kaiser, VIII. -XI. Jahrhundert, vol. IV, Bruno Cassirer, Berlín.
- LITTLE, Charles T. (1993): "Three seated apostles", en The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York, pp. 252-253.
Record manager
José Alberto Moráis MoránCitation:
José Alberto Moráis Morán, "Saint Peter in the papal chair carrying the double key" in Nostra et Mundi. Cultural Heritage from Castile and Leon around the world, Fundación Castilla y León, 2025. https://inventario.nostraetmundi.com/en/work/443
Saint Peter in the papal chair carrying the double key
Glencairn Museum, Philadelphia.
Glencairn Museum, Philadelphia.
Saint Peter in the papal chair carrying the double key
Goldschmidt, Adolph (1926). Table XXIV, number 82.