2-727-181 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

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. 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.