[Heaven and Hell.]

Abstract

SV371 — Nelson Dionne Collection. Full view of the carving titled "Heaven and the Day of Judgement," also known simply as "Heaven and Hell," an object in the Peabody Museum's collection at the East India Marine Hall, Salem, Mass. Published by G.K. Proctor, 206 Essex Street, Salem, Mass., c. 1870. The object was donated in 1806 by General Elias Haskett Derby. According to the Peabody Museum in 1921: "This is undoubtedly the most widely known single object in the museum and for one hundred years the only object of this sort in any museum in the country; it has always been kept with the relics of the E. I. M. Society. These carvings were made in Flanders during the fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries and were intended for the terminal beads of rosaries for the wealthy Roman Catholic nobility. This one is an admirable example of these wonderul box-wood carvings. While it is but two inches in diameter, 109 full-length figures and heads are crowded into the two sections of the ball."