Nativity (with inscription 'EN BETHLEAN' (in Bethlehem?). Adoration of the Magi. Massacre of the Innocents.
Diapered background. Repeated Gothic inscription: 'A Y'. Fleurs-de-lys.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 15th century (?).
von Philippowich 1961: French or Flemish.
Leeuwenberg 1969; Homo 1986; Detroit 1997; Gaborit-Chopin 2003; Museum's opinion 2010: 19th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
Missing: resonating chamber.
Comments
Prior to this piece being recognised as 19th century, the letters 'A Y' have been seen as referring to the motto of Philip the Good after he married Isabella of Portugal ('Aultre n'auray')(Molinier), or as a reference to Yolande of France and her husband Amédée of Savoy. The harp is too small for the period, it has too many strings (25), and there is no trace of how this could have been attached to a 15th-century resonating chamber.
Provenance
Collection of Marquise Arconati Visconti, Paris; gift of the Marquise Arconati Visconti, 1892.
Bibliography
E. Molinier, 'Un don récent au musée du Louvre', in L'Art, LIII, 1892, pp. 7-23, fig. p. 182.
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 116.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 465; II, no. 1252; III, pl. CCIX.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), p. 111.
E. von Philippowich, Elfenbein (Brunswick, 1961), p. 70, fig. 55.
M. Carrà, Gli avori in Occidente (Milan, 1966), fig. and no. 8.
J. Leeuwenberg, 'Early Nineteenth-Century Gothic Ivories', in Aachener Kunstblätter, 39 (1969), p. 135.
C. Homo, 'Un faux instrument médiéval: la harpe en ivoire du musée du Louvre', in Bulletin d'archéologie musicale, no. 6, March 1986, pp. 26-28.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 88, pp. 297-298.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 297.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.
