About the time when the chair of Ravenna was made, that is, in the sixth century, sculpture in ivory again sensibly declined. The figures in Byzantine work of that period begin to be characterised by sharpness and meagreness of form, and lengthiness of proportion; in the heads, however, we yet find a good expression; and especially in representations of our Lord dignity and resignation. The costume also gradually became more and more covered with ornaments and jewels; although the ancient classical robes were still copied, and apostles were clothed in togas, or the virgin in a chlamys and tunic, or the magi in Phrygian caps.

Troubles, moreover, arose, and about the year 750 there sprang up in the east very bitter theological quarrels, especially having reference to the lawfulness of the use of images, not only in churches but for private devotion. The spirit of Mahometanism, strictly and dogmatically condemning without distinction, whether in sculpture or in paintings, all representations of the deity and of man, first shown in the near neighbourhood of the Holy Land, spread rapidly from one country to another. The Christian iconoclasts of Constantinople, even if they did not follow the heresy of Mahomet in this matter to its fullest extent, at least equalled it in hatred of all holy images and sacred sculpture, and in the severity with which they persecuted the workers and purchasers of such works. Towards the middle of the eighth century the power and influence of these fanatics reached their height, and with Leo the Isaurian on the throne received the fullest support which an emperor could give. We must attribute to the rage of the iconoclasts, indiscriminating in its fury, not only the destruction of Christian monuments and sculpture (and especially those which were said to be miraculous, ??e???p???ta?,) but of many of the most important and most valuable remains, then still existing, of the best periods of ancient Greek art. This persecution continued for more than a hundred years, until the reign of Basil the Macedonian, a.d. 867; who, by permitting again the right use of images, restored to the arts their free exercise.

In consequence of these excesses in the east the west of Europe gained greatly. Not only works of art were brought by fugitives from Constantinople to France, Germany, and other countries, thus furnishing models from which copies could be multiplied and a better taste introduced, but the workmen and artists themselves, driven into exile, came and were hospitably received and founded everywhere new schools of art. Charlemagne especially, too wise a prince to overlook the certain benefits and advantages which were thus offered, liberally patronised the strangers and gave them his assistance and protection everywhere.

Some writers of great authority upon paintings have said that the iconoclast emigration did not much influence art in Rome and Italy. The Roman artists, as shown in the few mosaics which remain, “trod the path of decline, independent in their weakness. To the faults which had been confirmed by centuries of existence, others were superadded. To absence of composition, of balance in distribution and connection between figures, were added neglect and emptiness of form, a general sameness of feature, and the total disappearance of relief by shadow. Still the reminiscence of antique feeling remained in certain types, in a sort of dignity of expression and attitude, and in breadth of draperies, which, though defined by parallel lines, were still massive.” Crowe and Cavalcaselle, from whom the quotation is taken, may not intend, however, to include in this statement sculptures in ivory.

There are still remaining, in the collections both at home and abroad, some examples of carved ivories from the fifth century to the time of Charlemagne. The woodcut represents one of the most important and remarkable works known of this period. Although there is a great similarity of style between this ivory and a silver vase of the sixth century in the Blacas collection, in the British museum, there is still difficulty in suggesting even a probable date, which can scarcely be later than the early part of the seventh century; nor is it more easy to speculate on the original use of the vase. A loose ring, cut from the same block of ivory, surrounds the foot; and, if the vase was made for some very sacred purpose, we may suppose that the ring carried a thin veil to be thrown over the whole for further security and reverence. The cover is of later date, and where the ivory has cracked there is a repair excellently done by some mediÆval jeweller with a small gold chain which extends from the rim downwards about two inches. This piece is in the British museum.

Unlike the vase, which is good both in design and workmanship, the early ivories of western Europe are rude and many of them even barbarous in manner and workmanship; but about the year 800 a sure result of the influx of Greek artists is to be seen, and the style advanced with a very evident progression, subject only to a short interval of deterioration at the end of the tenth century. After this brief check there followed a distinct improvement, impressed, however, with a feeling and type peculiar to the eleventh and first half of the twelfth century. We find the figures calm and, as it were, collected in design, but placed in stiff and unnatural positions, the draperies close and clinging and broken up into numerous little folds, ornamented also still more largely than before with small jewels or beads. The school of the lower Rhine kept itself to a certain extent free from these faults; their figures preserved more movement, their modelling was better, their draperies more natural and disposed with greater art.

Christianity spread gradually though slowly over western Europe from the age of Charlemagne, and, as it spread, ivory was used more and more for the decoration of ecclesiastical furniture, especially of books and reliquaries. The adaptation of the large tablets given by the consuls has been already spoken of: and not only were the old diptychs still remaining in the seventh or eighth centuries applied to their new purpose for the public services of the church, but many new diptychs must also have been provided. Pyxes for the consecrated and unconsecrated wafers, retables or ornamented screens to be placed upon altars, holy water buckets, handles for flabella, episcopal combs, croziers, and pastoral staffs were made in fast increasing numbers.

There is ample evidence, not only from examples which have been preserved down to our own times but from contemporary writers, of the large extent to which the employment of ivory reached in the Carlovingian period, from the end of the eighth to the middle of the tenth century. Eginhard, writing to his son, sends him a coffer made by a contemporary artist, enriched with columns of ivory after the antique style; Hildoward, bishop of Cambrai, a.d. 790, orders a diptych of ivory to be made for him in the twelfth year of his pontificate: an inventory of Louis le DÉbonnaire, in 823, mentions a diptych of ivory, a statuette, and a coffer; his son-in-law, count Everard, leaves in his will writing tablets, a chalice and coffer, an evangelisterium ornamented with bas-reliefs, and a sword and belt with similar decorations, all of ivory; Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, in 845, orders covers to be made for the works of St. Jerome with plaques of ivory, and also for a sacramentary and lectionary.

Several of the most important of the existing examples of this famous Carlovingian school are named in Labarte’s useful book: among them, especially, the diptych preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Milan, and of which a plate is given in the album, pl. xiii.; the two plaques which form the cover of the sacramentary of Metz, now in the public library at Paris; and a bas-relief of a book of gospels at Tongres, in the diocese of LiÉge, remarkable for the simplicity of the composition, the soberness of its ornamentation and correctness of design, all of which qualities are frequent characteristics of the work of the ninth century.

Georgius says that the very ancient tabulÆ eburneÆ which he saw in the church of St. Riquier in Picardy (Centulensi thesauro), and those given to his church by Riculfus, bishop of Elne, in Narbonne, a.d. 915, were sacred diptychs.

Mr. Oldfield gives an excellent selection of Carlovingian ivories in his catalogue of the casts of the Arundel society, classes 4, 5, and 6.

In the same period we must also place, contrary to the judgment of Du Sommerard, who would suggest an earlier date, a book cover in the public library at Amiens, carved with the baptism of Clovis and with two miracles of Remigius. On the next page is an engraving of this plaque from Lacroix’s book on the arts of the middle ages. In the scene of the baptism of Clovis, which occupies the lowest of the three compartments, the dove is seen descending upon the head of the king with the famous ampulla and sacred oil used in the coronations of the sovereigns of France. It is scarcely necessary perhaps to remark that the holy water buckets above mentioned, p. 47, are not to be confounded with stoups; the one was carried by an acolyte in attendance on the priest, the other fixed against the wall at the entrance of the church. That situlÆ or buckets were made of ivory, and for the especial purpose just named, is certain from an example preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Milan, which is engraved in the appendix to the third volume of Gori’s Thesaurus. This situla is richly carved with scripture subjects and round the upper border is incised the legend,

Gotfred was archbishop of Milan in the year 975.