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Casket (coffret; frise d'arcatures) (End, right)

Casket (coffret; frise d'arcatures) (End, right)
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Front

Body, front; lid; body, back

Body, front

Lid

Body, back

Front

Front

Back

Front, open

Body, back

Body, front

Lid

Lid

Bottom

End, left

Subject
Secular. Courtly love.

Repository Institution
www.vam.ac.uk

To purchase an image
www.vandaimages.com


London, Victoria and Albert Museum

264-1867

Brass (mounts);glass-paste gems;block-print paper (19th-century lining);ivory

Height: 64 mm
Width: 134 mm
Depth: 88 mm

Lid
Youth with a hawk on his wrist; long hood with chevron decoration. Standing lady raising her hand. Youth with a hawk on his wrist; trees. Standing lady holding a flower.
Body, front
Bearded male musician playing string instrument (citole). Couple holding the lock; trees; seated female musician playing the psaltery.
End, right
Couple playing chess; lady holding two chess pieces in her left hand. Lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet.
Body, back
Courting couples (meeting of lovers); seated lady holding a squirrel; seated man holding a bow (?); seated lady holding a flower; trees.
End, left
Courting couple (meeting of lovers); seated couple; couple conversing; lady holding a squirrel; couple conversing; lady holding a dog.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels.


Koechlin Number: 1270

Griggs 1904-1907: English (?), 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), middle of the 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Lid cracked through to the left of the handle, held together by interior metal plate and pins.
The brass mounts and feet are probably a 19th-century addition.

Provenance
Collection of Prince Petr Soltykoff, Paris: sale, Drouot, Paris, 8 April 1861, lot 338; purchased by John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London; purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.

Bibliography
Inventory of Art Objects acquired in the Year 1867. Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged according to the dates of their acquisition (London, 1868), I, p. 6.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 106.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXVI.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 479, 483; II, no. 1270; III, pl. CCXVII.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 52.
P. Shoppe, Reading Romances. The Production and Reception of French Gothic Secular Ivory Caskets in the Context of Late Medieval Literary Practices, thesis from the university of Urbana-Champaign, (Illinois: CAA publishing, 2000). p.207
P. M. Carns, ‘Cutting a fine figure: costume on French Gothic Ivories’, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Vol. 5 (2009), pp. 55-91 (pp. 72 and 88).
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 230.


Image

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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