Attack on the Castle of Love; courting couples (meeting of lovers); winged God of Love throwing arrows at two figures; two seated ladies; youth chucking his lover under the chin; lovers on the battlements; youth with a hawk on his wrist; knights in armour assaulting the castle; knights on horseback; knight climbing a ladder; towers; portcullis raised; frieze of trefoils; trees.
Corner terminals: lions.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: Rhineland?, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France (Paris), 2nd quarter of the 14th century; attributed to the same artist as Inv. 1617-1855 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
No trace (see report by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 2002).
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.
Object Condition
Ivory cracked. Breaks on the outer moulding, on the right.Ivory browned due to early usage of oil-based products.
Missing: 2 lions (of which the lower one's paws and tail are still visible); the head of the upper-left lion; the arm of the knight, on the left; some of the rungs of the ladder; the hands of the youth to the right of the god of love.
One hole through the upper part, marked by a sculpted rosette.
2 modern holes for metal hooks (removed for conservation) on the sides.
Traces of red wax by the lions.
Comments
May form a pair with another piece in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Inv. 9-1872).
The deep edge of the mirror back is angled from front and back to form a channel, and in the centre at the top is a rosette with a hole at its centre, possibly for a hook or clasp. Three further holes on the sides, between the lions.
Provenance
Collection of marquise Arconati Visconti, Paris; gift of marquise Arconati Visconti, 1916.
Bibliography
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue Officiel illustré de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), no. 120, p. 21 (ill.).
E. Molinier, F. Marcou, L'Exposition rétrospective de l'Art français des origines à 1900 (Paris, 1900), pp. 8-9, with ill.
G. Migeon, 'L'exposition rétrospective de l'art français', in Revue de l'art ancien et moderne, VII, 1900, p. 461, fig. (mistakenly claimed to belong to the Paul Garnier collection).
J.-J. Marquet de Vasselot, 'La collection de Madame la marquise Arconati Visconti', in Les Arts, April 1903, p. 10, fig. p. 12.
R. Koechlin, 'Le dieu d'Amour et le château d'Amour sur les valves de boîtes à miroirs', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Nov. 1921, p. 291, fig.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 407, 408; II, no. 1099.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Âge occidental (Freiburg, 1978), p. 171.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 189.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 203 and 204.
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