Side 1: Garden of Love; courting couples (meeting of lovers); seated youth chucking his lover under the chin; youth with a hawk on his wrist; lady holding a dog; bench decorated with crosshatching; lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet; couple embracing; lady chucking her lover under the chin; trees.
Side 2: Garden of Love; courting couples (meeting of lovers); standing youth chucking his lover under the chin; lady holding a dog; couple making a wreath; youth and lady plucking flowers from a tree; offering of a chaplet.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Detroit 1997: France (Paris), c. 1320-30.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France (Paris), c. 1320.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved on both sides.
Comments
Michael Camille (1998) suggested that this comb may be part of the same set as a complete mirror case in the Louvre (MRR 197).
Provenance
Collection of George Salting (b. 1836, d. 1909), London: his bequest to the museum in 1910.
Bibliography
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue illustré Officiel de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), no. 183 (?)(owner's name mispelt 'Georges Solling, Londres').
'Salting Bequest (A. 70 to A. 1029-1910)/Murray Bequest (A. 1030 to A. 1096-1910)', in List of Works of Art Acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum (Department of Architecture and Sculpture) (London, 1910), p. 93.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 426; II, no. 1147; III, pl. CXCI.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 50, pl. XLVIII.
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. 53, pp. 222-223.
M. Camille, The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire (London, 1998), pp. 55-56, figs. 41-42.
P. M. Carns, ‘Cutting a fine figure: costume on French Gothic Ivories’, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Vol. 5 (2009), pp. 55-91 (pp. 68-69, fig. 4.6).
J. Saviello, ‘Instrumente der Ordnung’, in P. Cordez and M. Kruger (eds), Werkzeuge und Instrumente (Berlin, 2012), pp. 54-55, fig. 5.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 209.
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