Four compartments formed by the branches of a tree dividing in the centre.
Register 1: Courting couples (meeting of lovers); lady crowning her lover with a chaplet; lady holding a dog; youth with a hawk on his wrist. lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet.
Register 2: seated couple conversing; youth with a hawk on his wrist; lady holding a dog. Couple conversing.
Corner terminals: four crouching monsters.
Molinier 1890: France, 14th century.
Destève 1906: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: France, 14th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.Label with handwritten inscription: 'no. 102'.Used to also have the customs label (see older photographs): 'Douane Centrale Exportation Paris'.
Provenance
Collection of Frédéric Spitzer, Paris: his sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 97. Collection of Aimé Desmottes, Paris: Desmottes sale, Paris, Drouot, 19-23 March 1900, lot 280. Dmitri Schevitch collection, Paris: his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 4-7 April 1906, lot 154; Claudius Côte collection, Lyon: his sale, Paris, 4 December 1936, lot 102. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Maxime Levy Hermanos: gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maxime L. Hermanos, 1979.
Bibliography
French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama, Yokohama City Museum, 1989, no. 18.
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 62 (E. Molinier).
T. Destève, 'La Collection de M. Claudius Côte', in Les Arts 59 (November 1906), pp. 28-32 (p. 31).
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 380, 382; II, no. 1015.
Mirror of the Medieval World, exhibition catalogue, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, no. 161, p. 137.
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