Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Tablet 1: Recessed to receive the wax (with notches on one side).
Tablet 2: Reverse divided into 5 compartments, the central one being circular.
Labelled: 'no. 91' (both wings), 'no. 478' (tablet 2 only).

Object Condition
Chips to the edges.
Tablet 1: open crack in lower left.
Two holes on one side on both tablets to hold them together.

Comments
These two panels formed the outer plaquettes of a set of writing tablets.

Provenance
Collection of Baron Jean-Charles Davillier (no. 51), at least from 1867; bequest of J.-C. Davillier, 1883.

Bibliography
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1773.
L. Courajod and E. Molinier, Donation du baron Charles Davillier. Catalogue des objets exposés au musée du Louvre (Paris, 1885), no. 51.
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 91.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 438, 439; II, no. 1173-1174; III, pl. CXCVII.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), pp. 77, 113, 120; pl. XLI.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 38, fig. 54.
R. H. Randall, 'Frog in the Middle', in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (June 1958), pp. 269-275 (p. 273, with ill.).
M. de Carvalho Quaresma, O Marfim na Arte plastica (Guimaraes, 1959), fig. 2.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 156.
Avori bizantini e medievali nel museo nazionale di Ravenna, ed. by L. Martini and C. Rizzardi (Ravenna, 1990), no. 23 (cited)
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les ivoires gothiques français', in Louvre. Trésors du Moyen Âge. Dossier de l'art, no. 16, Dec. 1993-Jan. 1994, fig. 11.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Les tablettes à écrire d'ivoire au Moyen Âge', in Métiers d'art 54-55, (December 1994-March 1995), pp. 17-20 (p. 19, with fig.).
R. H. Randall Jr., 'Games on a Medieval Ivory', in Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 56 (1997), pp. 3-9 (pp. 5-7, fig. 8).
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 177.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 576, in relation to no. 169 and p. 590, no. 176.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), p. 709, fig. 1 and in relation to no. 243.