The Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages — A Reader’s Guide

From Catalog to Commentary: Cust’s Shifting Voice

The early chapters on consular and secular diptychs proceed methodically, listing consuls, dates, and iconographic details in a style typical of early twentieth-century handbooks. But as Cust moves into Byzantine and later periods, her sentences lengthen and her judgments become more pronounced. She describes the “quiet grace and exquisite dignity” of a Virgin on the Harbaville Triptych as “hardly to be found in the finest Italian art,” a comparative claim that lifts the passage beyond mere description. The preface’s humility gives way to authoritative pronouncements, especially when she critiques the “hideous casing” enclosing the Throne of St. Peter or notes that later Byzantine figures grew “positively lugubrious.” These shifts in register—from neutral enumeration to evaluative commentary—create a layered reading experience, where the author’s personality emerges most clearly in moments of aesthetic assessment.

Pacing Through Periods: The Rhythm of Evidence

Cust organizes her material chronologically, but the pace is uneven. The chapter on consular diptychs moves quickly through lists of examples, while the section on the Byzantine Renaissance slows to dwell on a single reliquary at Cortona, analyzing its proportions and the “growing tendency” to exaggerate height. This deceleration mirrors the subject: the tenth and eleventh centuries produced “so great” a number of examples that selection becomes difficult, and Cust’s prose accordingly becomes more selective and expansive. In contrast, the Lombardic and Anglo-Saxon sections are compressed, with brief paragraphs that feel almost telegraphic. The effect is a rhythm that mimics the uneven survival of artifacts—some periods yield dense description, others only tantalizing fragments. Readers attentive to tempo will notice how Cust’s sentence length and detail density signal the relative richness of the surviving record.

Recurring Details: The Rosette Border and the Stained Casket

Two motifs recur across Cust’s narrative, anchoring her stylistic observations. The “rosette border” appears first in the context of Byzantine caskets, where it frames classical subjects “confused” with foreign elements, and later in the discussion of the Throne of St. Peter, where similar borders surround pagan labors of Hercules. This repeated detail becomes a thread linking disparate objects. Equally striking is the “beautiful casket” at Troyes, “stained a rich purple” and sent home by a crusader bishop. Cust notes that it “evidently belonged to the Basileus,” a rare moment where she infers ownership from material evidence. These recurring physical details—the border, the stain—serve as touchstones for the reader, providing concrete anchors in a text that otherwise moves swiftly across centuries and geographies. They also hint at Cust’s method: building arguments from observable features rather than from documentary claims.

Cust’s study rewards a patient reading that attends to its shifts in pace and voice. The early lists of consuls and diptychs may feel dense, but they establish a baseline against which later, more evaluative passages gain force. Readers interested in the craft itself will find the most sustained analysis in the Byzantine and Gothic sections, where Cust’s descriptive eye is sharpest. The book’s value lies less in comprehensive coverage than in the moments when the author’s own engagement with the objects breaks through the scholarly frame.

There’s a particular quietness in tracing how medieval hands shaped ivory, noticing when the cataloguing gives way to something softer, more interpretive. That shift always reminds me of pacing through old histories at dusk. Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation — Text and Context carries a similar unhurried wonder, less about facts than the warmth of voices long gone, lingering like light on a page. I keep returning to both.