The four Evangelists

These are four panel reliefs carved in walrus ivory in Germany (Lower Rhine) in the middle to second half of the eleventh century. These four plaques probably intended to decorate the binding of a manuscript containing the Gospels. The role of the evangelists as the authors of these texts is stressed by showing them at their writing desks.

Similar reliefs were frequently used to decorate covers of manuscripts of the Gospels, either placed in the corners or, in the form of a cross, about a central plaque.