This delicately carved ivory plaque, intended for personal devotion and depicting The Piercing of Jesus’ Side (John 19:33-34), was produced by Chinese craftsmen in the Philippines (Manila). Similarly to other such plaques of complex religious imagery, it was conceived as a visual aid for devotional practices promoted by Jesuit missionaries in Asia, or for exporting to Central and South America and the Iberian Peninsula. Recent archaeological research, namely on assemblages recovered from the Manila galleon Santa Margarita, shipwrecked in 1601 off the Mariana Islands (Ladrones), has yielded a wealth of information on the chronology and production of devotional ivories in the Philippines in the early 17th century, an industry that predates Goan ivory carving production by half a century.
Remarkable for its carving and aesthetic quality, the present plaque was made from several ivory segments joined together as in a jigsaw. In an exercise of great virtuosity, given the raw material fragility, some of its iconographic elements project dangerously forward from the ground, as is evident in the long spear and in Longinus horse’s legs. Albeit with some omissions, the composition replicates a contemporary engraving by Johan Sadeler I (1550-1600), after a drawing by Maarten de Vos (1532-1603), which amazingly survives in Frankfurt’s Städel Museum (inv. 2744). Dated 1582, the print illustrates the Calvary scene of The Piercing of Jesus’ Side, in which Longinus, the Roman soldier (depicted as a centurion) on horseback, spears the crucified Christ’s chest with the Holy Lance. Additionally, the composition includes the two crucified thieves flanking Jesus and, to the right hand side foreground, the kneeling Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist. A similar plaque survives in the Capilla, or Iglesia, de la Vera Cruz, in Salamanca, Spain, having been recently published by the late Margarita Estella Marcos.