Gothic Ivories Project | Dagger handle, with arches (manche de poignard; frise d'arcatures) (Side 2)

Four Cardinal virtues
Side 1: Justice holding scales and sword, Temperance pouring water from a jug into a vessel.
Side 2: lady holding a dog.
Side 3: Prudence holding a mirror, Fortitude taming a lion.
Side 4: hooded man.
Top: man wrestling a monster.
Lion heads; quatrefoils in the spandrels; trefoils in the gables.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding.

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Missing: upper part of the handle, including part of the monster (?).
Vertical crack at the base of the handle on side 1.
Chipped in several places. Worn.

Comments
Maker's mark inlaid on the blade: snake below an anchor (?).

Provenance
Collection of Alexander Petrovich Basilewski (b. 1829, d. 1899), Paris, since 1874; acquired by the Museum in 1885.

Bibliography
A. Darcel, A. P. Basilewski, Collection Basilewski. Catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1874), no. 246.
Zapadnoevropeiskaia reznaia kost' IX-XIX vekov iz sobraniia Ermitazha: katalog vystavki, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], The State Hermitage Museum, 1973, no. 136.
Westeuropäische Elfenbeinarbeiten aus der Eremitage Leningrad, exhibition catalogue, Berlin-Köpenick, Kunstgewerbemuseum, 1974, no. 14.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (St Peterburg, 2014), no. 158.

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