Register 1: Meeting of lovers (courting couples); couple embracing; youth holding a pair of gloves; lady holding a chaplet. Youth chucking his lover under the chin.
Register 2: Lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet. Seated couple; lady holding a small dog; youth with a hawk on his wrist.
Four compartments formed by the branches of trees in the centre and on the sides.
Westwood 1876: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Rouen 2000-2001: Paris, ca. 1310-1320.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris, c. 1310-1320.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Faint traces of polychromy (see report by B. Guineau, 1996).
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror. On reverse, screw thread with notches to allow the case to be attached to its pendant. Hole at the top.Labelled 'N. 1054', 'no. 58', 'A 61', '890', '5 Rev'.
Object Condition
Two open cracks in lower-right.
Chip to the shoulder of the lady in the crowning of the lover.
Comments
It forms together with MRR 197A one of the rare complete surviving mirror boxes.
Michael Camille (1998) suggested that this complete mirror case may be part of the same set as a comb in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Inv. A.560-1910).
Provenance
Mentioned in 1779. Pierre Révoil collection, Lyon (no. 170); acquired by the Museum in 1828.
Bibliography
Marquis de Migieu and C. Boullemier, Recueil des sceaux du Moyen Âge dits 'sceaux gothiques' (Paris, 1779), pl. III (3).
M. de Laborde, Notice des émaux, bijoux et objets divers exposés dans les galeries du musée du Louvre (Paris, 1857), no. 889, 890.
A. Sauzay, Musée de la Renaissance [Musée du Louvre]. Notice des ivoires (Paris, 1863), no. 61.
J.O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 861-862 ('54.76-77).
L. Courajod, La Collection Révoil du musée du Louvre (Caen, 1886), no. 170.
E. Molinier, Catalogue des ivoires. Musée national du Louvre (Paris, 1896), no. 58.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, 367, 381, 426; II, no. 1007, 1008; III, pl. CLXXVII.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français, (Paris, 1947) p. 115.
L'Art du Moyen Age en France, exhibition catalogue, Prague and Bratislava, 1978-1979, no. 59.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 123-124.
Schmolke-Hasselmann, 'Accipiter et Cirotheca', in Germanish-Romanische Monatsschrift, 32 (1982), pp. 387-417, figs. 1-2.
Tesoros Medievales del Museo del Louvre, exhibition catalogue, Mexico, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, 1993, no. 51.
B. Guineau, 'Études des couleurs dans la polychromie des ivoires médiévaux', in Bulletin de la société nationale de l'art français' (1996), p. 196.
M. Camille, The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire (London, 1998), pp. 55-56.
Miroirs. Jeux et reflets depuis l'Antiquité, exhibition catalogue, Rouen, Musée départemental des antiquités, 2000-2001, no. 89 fig.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 129.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 200.
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