page_title: Barberini ivory
section_title: Side panels
hierarchical_section_title: Barberini ivory / Iconography / Side panels
caption_attribution_description: English: Barberini diptych, three quarters view. Constantinople, early 6th c., Late Roman Theodosian style, ivory. Français&#160;: Détail du diptyque Barberini (vue de trois quarts), début du VIe s., style théodosien tardif, ivoire. Location: Louvre, Department of Decorative Arts (OA 9063)
context_page_description: The Barberini ivory is a Byzantine ivory leaf from an imperial diptych dating from Late Antiquity, now in the Louvre in Paris. It represents the emperor as triumphant victor. It is generally dated from the first half of the 6th century and is attributed to an imperial workshop in Constantinople, while the emperor is usually identified as Justinian, or possibly Anastasius I or Zeno. It is a notable historical document because it is linked to queen Brunhilda of Austrasia. On the back there is a list of names of Frankish kings, all relatives of Brunhilda, indicating the important position of queens within Frankish royal families. Brunhilda ordered the list to be inscribed and offered it to the church as a votive image.
  Although it is not a consular diptych, it shares many features of their decorative schemes. The emperor is accompanied in the main panel by a conquered barbarian in trousers at left, a crouching allegorical figure, probably representing territory conquered or reconquered, who holds his foot in thanks or submission, and an angel or victory, crowning the emperor with the traditional palm of victory.
context_section_description: The side panels are in less-elevated relief (the maximum depth of the carving on the central panel is 28 mm, whereas it is only 9 mm on the side panels), and are stylistically slightly less virtuosic than the central panel.  They bear borders inscribed in a simplified zig-zag pattern, leaving room in the border around the central panel for a garland of stylised leaves with a small round hole on the middle of each side for four now-lost inlays.
  The left hand panel represents a superior officer, recognisably by his military clothing and equipment, comparable to those of the emperor.  Bearded, he wears a cuirass and the paludamentum, fixed to his right shoulder by a simpler fibula than that worn by the emperor.  We can distinguish the scabbard of his sword fixed to his belt, worn on the left side.  He advances towards the emperor and presents him with a statuette of Victory on a pedestal - she hold a crown and a palm, like the Victory on the central panel.  At his feet is a bag.  The man stands in an architectural scheme formed of two columns supporting Corinthian capitals and of a tessellated pattern (possibly opus sectile) evoking a room in an imperial palace.
  This figure is sometimes interpreted as a consul, and the statuette of Victory and the bag (interpreted as in all probability containing gold) as consular attributes.  However, the figure may also represent sparsio, the consular largesses represented on other diptychs, such as those of Clement (513) and Justin (540), with the bag of gold more broadly symbolic of war booty, proof of imperial triumph.  Equally, where Caesar Gallus holds a comparable statuette of victory in his image on the Calendar of 354, he wears civil and not military clothing.  The officer on the Barberini ivory is thus more likely to represent a general who took part in the victorious campaign represented by the ivory.  It is natural to suppose that in the symmetrical panel on the right (now missing) showed another general in similar fashion.
  There is also the possibility that this figure represents the Frankish king Clovis I, who possibly received the diptych in 508.
caption: 3/4 view, underlining the different depths of relief on the Barberini ivory.
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