Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
No trace (see unpublished reports by C2RMF, 1983, and by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 2002).

Object Condition
Traces of red wax around the lock. Ivory dry, very cracked. Holes to attach ironwork (lost).
All the borders of the fragments have been thinned, and the horizontal edges of the smaller fragments recut.
Before 1880, the ivories were inlayed in a red-coloured wooden panel (dating from the first half of the 19th century?), decorated with drawings in ink and the arms of the Mailly family, along with 2 other ivory plaques from elsewhere (Italy, 15th century). As this wooden mount was warped and damaging the ivories, they were removed.

Comments
Three other panels have survived from the same casket, also in the Louvre collection (see related objects).

Provenance
Collection of the comte de Mailly (?); collection of the marquis de Mailly-Nesle, La Roche-Mailly (Sarthe, France); collection of Claude Vaudecrane, Le Mans. Acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 1983.

Bibliography
Exposition des Beaux-Arts. Section de l'art rétrospectif, exhibition catalogue, Le Mans, 1880, no. 1205.
Les Trésors du patrimoine sarthois: de l'Antiquité à nos jours, exhibition catalogue, Le Mans, Abbaye de l'Epau, 1980, no. 1-7.
'Acquisitions', in Revue du Louvre, 1984-2, p. 147, fig. 1.
Nouvelles acquisitions du département des Objets d'art, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1985, no. 6, fig.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 174.